Clorox’s Pine-Sol Original Multi-Surface Cleaner has been found to be effective in killing the novel coronavirus, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced.

The common household cleaner is now part of the agency’s growing list of products that have been proven to be efficient slayers of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for the coronavirus.

In tests by a third-party laboratory, Pine-Sol showed that it has the ability to kill the virus within ten minutes of being used on hard, nonporous surfaces, Clorox noted in a press release. 

“With a long-standing history of being a powerful cleaner and disinfectant, and the trusted brand choice within the Black community, Pine-Sol Original Multi-Surface Cleaner now offers the clean families have trusted through generations with the protection they need right now against the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,” Chris Hyder, vice president and general manager of the Clorox Company’s cleaning division, said in a statement.  

The company added that the best way to disinfect against the coronavirus is to apply full-strength Pine-Sol with a clean sponge or cloth on a surface, wait ten minutes, then rinse. For dirtier surfaces, pre-cleaning is necessary to garner the full virus-killing effect.  

Clorox, the world’s largest manufacturer of disinfectant cleaning products, already boasts more than thirty-five brands on the EPA’s list of disinfectants for use against the coronavirus. There are now nearly five hundred products in total. 

The EPA has also put in the effort to combat “imposter disinfectant products” that have “potentially dangerous claims of protection against the novel coronavirus.”  

Other well-known products to gain EPA approval are Lysol Disinfectant Spray and Lysol Disinfectant Max Cover Mist.  

In laboratory testing, the agency discovered that both products were able to kill the virus two minutes after contact. It was pointed out that these disinfectants are only for use on surfaces and should never be used on the human body. 

“In the face of the pandemic, Lysol continues to work with a wide range of scientific and health experts to educate the public on the importance of hygiene,” Rahul Kadyan, executive vice president of Reckitt Benckiser in North America, Lysol’s parent company, said in a statement. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in June that more than one-third of Americans misused cleaners and disinfectants in their efforts to prevent coronavirus infections. 

Several of the commonly reported “high-risk” practices were washing foods with bleach, using household cleaning or disinfectant products on bare skin and intentionally inhaling or ingesting these products. 

“These practices pose a risk of severe tissue damage and corrosive injury and should be strictly avoided,” the CDC researchers wrote in the report. 

More specifically, the CDC found that 4 percent of respondents consumed or gargled diluted bleach solutions, soapy water and other disinfectants. Nearly 20 percent said they washed fruits and vegetables with bleach, and about the same percentage used household disinfectants on their skin. 

Overall, about 40 percent of respondents reported using at least one method not recommended by the CDC. 

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters