A Cleaning product called Super 8 offers a tragic lesson on why bleach should not be used for cleaning
The product identified as Super 8 Sodium Hypochlorite Sanitizer manufactured by Autochlor was recently involved in a tragic accident at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant. Sodium hypochlorite is the active ingredient in household bleach. When concentrated bleach solutions are mixed with items like ammonia or acidic cleaners, a toxic gas can be formed. In the case of the employee, it is alleged the bleach sanitizer was accidently mixed with an acid cleaner that was already on the floor. An employee was overcome and subsequently died at the hospital.
This tragic accident should be a reminder that there maybe better alternatives to bleach when it comes to cleaning and killing germs. Used correctly, bleach can be effective, but mixing with other common products found at home or in commercial cleaning operations can cause serious injury or death.
READ “The Problem with Bleach” to learn more about bleach and potentially safer alternatives.
We always like to teach that you NEVER mix different cleaning chemicals together, but people inevitably do. Below are some common items that can create toxic reactions with bleach.
A list of things of common items that should not be mixed with bleach:
Household ammonia 
Toilet Bowl Cleaners
Soap Scum Cleaners for tubs and showers
Vinegar
Lime Scale Removers
Rust Removers
In our opinion, bleach is not needed in commercial cleaning operations and there are alternatives that can work as well, in some cases better, and without the potential incompatibility issues of bleach.
Link to the NBC News Story: “Deadly, accidental mix of acid and bleach blamed for Buffalo Wild Wings manager’s death”
Visit us at Multi-Clean.com to learn more about safer cleaning products for commercial use.
In my early days, I had placed some bleach in about 6 toilets standing beside each other in separate cubicles. After an hour, I went back and quickly poured toilet bowl cleaner into each toilet and before I reached number 6, a was overcome by the toxic flumes of Chlorine gas. This gas spread throughout the building but luckily there was no one about. I became quite ill and developed a severe migrane and felt nauseous. Now when I clean toilets, I have a laminate sign that I place on each toilet system which reads – THERE IS BLEACH IN THIS TOILET – DO NOT USE, FLUSH OR PUT ANY CHEMICALS INTO THE BOWL. At least this way I am less likely to ever make the same mistake and I have requested my fellow workers to use the same signs.
Best to not use the bleach at all, just use the bowl cleaner and be done with it. one step process, save time, don’t have to fool around with the signs, no chance of someone else grabbing the bleach mixing it with something else and having a bad ending. I’ve sold cleaning products for 39 years, someone in the area mixed bleach and bowl cleaner (they found him the next morning dead) and another time a staff person did that at a hospital and would of died if she worked at a non-hospital. I have had lots of customers think they are chemists and combine products thinking they work better that way, but if it did work better companies would manufacture such a product,
Agreed, it would be our advice to eliminate the bleach from the operations altogether.
Kitchen and Bath are the top two renovations/remodeling priorities here in the USA as well. I always recommend purchasing a dry/wet vac it just always good to have. This is a good, informative article on water damage. I am rug cleaning in out town with 20 years of plumbing experience and look forward to contributing in this great community.
Thank you for sharing this information about a cleaning product called super 8 offers a tragic lesson on why bleach should not be used for cleaning. It was useful and interesting. You have done a great job.