Cold Laundry

I just recently read a facebook post about the horrors of doing laundry in cold water.  On the face of it, it made some very plausible points about the spread of infection from improperly laundered clothing, but in these matters, alongside with the theoretical problems that a citizen could imagine, there must also be a quantitative estimation of the problem.

When I was being taught for the First Aid test in the Boy Scouts, I was told contradictory principles about dealing with a cut or wound.  (This was in the mid Sixties.)  They advised that the wound had to be drenched with an antibiotic; the antibiotic of choice was Tincture of Iodine.  Pretty soon, I was taught that Iodine was more likely to cause intense pain and trauma to the patient, for not the best way to reduce the chances of infection.  Soap and water, they said.  Gently wash the wound with clean water (of course, wash your hands with soap and water first).  You'll wash off infinitely more "germs" than you'd have killed with Iodine.

It's different with hospitals.  They can't take risks, for fear of litigation.  So hospital linens are traditionally boiled by their laundry services, and I'd assume that they'd do spot checks on the linen, or whatever, to ensure that they're "germ" free.  Same goes with hotels, etc.  Some hospitals and clinics washed their equipment in high-pressure boilers (autoclaves), that were guaranteed to kill a large percentage of the microbes.  That was about 60 years ago.  Nowadays, they tear open a disposable piece of equipment (scalpel, forceps, syringe, retractor—whatever—use it once, and trash it.  So the probability of infection spreading throughout a hospital is practically zero, but of course the bad side of hospital waste being thrown in landfills is depressing.  (That's why it's sometimes put in plastic bags and thrown in the sea in New Jersey!  Jk.)

Now, think of a spot of infected waste from one person, being placed on another person.  Say Person A has some bacteria in their bloodstream, and Person B touches it.  Normally, the skin takes care of it; after a shower, or washing hands, the bacteria in that spot of waste is gone.  One or two bacteria—no problem.  Even a thousand bacteria—no problem.  If they get into the bloodstream, they'll be surrounded by White Blood Cells, which are the National Guard of the body, and eaten up.

If a large quantity of bacteria, like millions, get into someone's bloodstream, then the fight is on.  The victim's temperature will rise, they may get disoriented, etc, etc.  The body may win, or the intruders may win.  At an emergency room, a blood test will identify the bacteria, and a specific antigen will be administered, and, after a time period depending on how bad (heavy) the infection is, the temperature will come down.

Let's talk about laundry washing temperature.  For decades, since washing machines were invented, citizens washed their laundry in the warmest—or hottest—water that the clothes could tolerate.  We did this for decades.  Then, people began to think of (1) heat pollution,(2) color stability, (3) energy consumption, and (4) detergents in our rivers and streams, and citizens began to look at laundry detergents with eyes that were less kindly.  We got 'woke', as Procter and Gamble might have said, and once one manufacturer invented a detergent that washed clothes well in cold water, all the detergent manufacturers started doing it.  But the article I read, rather hysterically, asked the question: what if a spot of poo in your underpants didn't get completely washed off in the cold water, and transferred some of its bacteria into the water, and wound up in your face towel?  With which you wipe your Face?  What then, huh?

They do have a point. 

If you can tolerate a few dozen bacteriums on your face, don't worry about this issue; laundering will cut down the number of bacteria that actually makes it all the way to your face drastically.  What the washing doesn't remove, the dryer will destroy.  

If you have poor hygiene habits, Ok, wash your underwear in warm water.  Use conventional detergent if you like.  Wash all the underwear in the same hot/warm wash; that way, your poo bacteria will—if it survives—only be transferred to the underwear of others in your family.  The family that washes its underwear together, stays together.  But since I started washing everything (except for the occasional stained underwear) in cold water, colors have stayed bright, clothes are nice and crisp.  Now I focus on sorting clothes by the material, and sometimes the color.  Hot water puts a strain on the fabric. 

I am not a doctor (as the guy in the commercal used to say) though I play one on TV.  I don't even do that; all this information is stuff I picked up over 3/4 of a century, eaves-dropping on doctors and nurses.  I know just enough physiology to flag hysteria. 

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