Americans are clean freaks, that’s a well known fact. I want to address this part of the American culture specifically, because it goes contrary to some of the behavioral changes that will become necessary as the climate and water crisis worsen. Health magazine just published an article on ‘The Germiest Places in America’ . I am not going anywhere after reading the article. In fact, I am not even going in my kitchen, or my bathroom for that matter. The world is a scary place they say, with germs lurking everywhere, about to ambush you, and we are told, ‘wash up people, and get ready to wage a bit of germ warfare of your own’.
To reduce the risk of germs form wet dirty laundry, we are told, 1) ‘Run your washer and dryer at 150 degrees . . .’, 2) ‘Transfer wet laundry to the dryer quickly so germs don’t multiply, and dry for at least 45 minutes’, 3) ‘ wash underwear separately’. Forget all the green tips about running washer warm or cold, minimizing number of loads, and air drying your laundry.
To combat germs in the bathtub, ‘Once a week, apply a disinfecting cleaner to the tub.”You need to actually scrub, then you need to wash the germs down the drain with water and dry the tub with a clean towel. ‘ How about showering instead of taking a bath?
This American habit of washing, cleaning, sanitizing, germ killing, is costing beaucoup precious water and energy. Other, just as civilized countries are not so concerned, and they seem to do just as well. Of course this is coming from someone who used to let her little children explore floor surfaces to their hearts’ content. I am French, after all.
La Marguerite 
I’m a physician, but even I am not so obsessed with sanitization. I have never disinfected my bathtub! And I certainly don’t worry about bacteria multiplying in my laundry.
Of course, my life in the hospital is quite different! But there’s no need to be paranoid at home!
Thanks for the validation!
it is precisely by exploring floors that children ‘s immune systems encounter the challenges which build up their natural immunity.
Suciophobia eventually creates resistant strains of bacteria.
A healthy environment allows for host and pest to balance their assaults upon one another; too many invasive anti-bacterial products and scrubbing disturb the predator bacteria which would have eaten the harmful ones.
True, it would not be advisable to allow wet laundry to collect smelly germs, but drying on a line lets sunlight kill all harmful bacteria within an hour or two when totally dry.
Same for all kitchen and bathroom surfaces, wash with water, clean rag and vinegar or an orange cleaner, let dry, done!
Tip: change the rag every single day or more often.
thanks for this blog, Marguerite, genial.
C’ est la ou on peut remercier d’ avoit ete elevees en France . . .
It occurs to me that our problems occur when there is an overabundance of a single “germ” rather than when there are too many “germs” in a balanced flora. Because of our intestinal tract flora, our bodies are comprised of more single cell “germs” that mammalian cells. It is when we suppress that intestinal flora with antibiotics that pathogenic “germs” such as Salmonella are able to gain a foothold in that otherwise extremely competitive environment.
We fail to recognize that the “germyist” place of all is the very soil under our feet. The very best soils for growing life that supports us (plants) contains millions of different “germs” per gram of soil. We don’t even know either how many different kinds or even much about them as current technology only allows us to detect their presence but not develop much understanding about them. Glomalin, a fungal product that is now recognized as a very important component of productive soils, was discovered only a decade ago.
Having evolved spending our entire lives in contact with the soil, I suspect our species is far more able to deal with “germs” that we believe that we are. A good share of our 6 billion still do, living on earth floors in earth-walled structures. Yet in Western culture we despise the soil, labeling the unclean as “dirty”, and we often denigrate tillers of the soil, labeling them as “dumb farmers”, “hayseeds”.
The blogger “Muck and Mystery” sometimes posts on soils.
http://www.garyjones.org/mt/archives/000401.html
The book “Out of the Earth: Civilization and the Life of the Soil” by Daniel Hillel, 1992, is an excellent read on the importance of soils to civilization.
The on-line book “The Soil Biology Primer” provides more technical information
http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/concepts/soil_biology/biology.html
Great info and links. Thank you!