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COVID and Safe & Effective Cleaning and Disinfecting and Why Not to Use Disinfectant Foggers, Misters or Electrostatic Sprayers

January 14 @ 7:00 pm 8:00 pm EST

Safer alternatives for cleaning and disinfecting against COVID-19 are available. Proper techniques and safer cleaners can protect your family and home. In public places like schools, disinfectant foggers, misters and electrostatic sprayers are often marketed as the easiest and quickest way to decontaminate a room from potential COVID-19 infection.

In the first part of this training, we will showcase proper cleaning and disinfecting techniques as well as safer non-toxic cleaning products. Then we will discuss the hazards associated with foggers, misters and electronic sprayers, how they can lead to inadequate disinfection, and why they are not recommended by governmental authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

This workshop is co-presented by LDA and Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE). LDA’s mission is to create opportunities for success for all individuals affected by learning disabilities through support, education and advocacy. LDA’s Healthy Children Project works to eliminate harmful chemicals in products, soil, water & air linked to learning and developmental disabilities.

For the past 25 years, Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) has worked to amplify women’s voices
to eliminate the toxic chemicals that harm our health and communities. Their national action network, People Against Quats (PAQ), works to create community leaders to reduce exposure to toxic disinfecting chemicals in public spaces.

Tracy Gregoire is the Healthy Children Project Director for the LDA of America. Tracy oversees all children’s environmental health initiatives for LDA, including running the coalition of 25 state LDA affiliates active in HCP. She is also the Safe Markets Coordinator for Coming Clean, and the HCP Coordinator for the LDA of Maine. She has worked in environmental policy and organizing for 15 years, and earned her environmental studies BA and her secondary education certification from Bates College.

In 2006, Betty Riggin made a big change in her life and her house cleaning business; she switched from using poisonous chlorine and ammonia based cleaners to using non-toxic cleaners. About 2011, she began teaching sustainable housekeeping to share the wealth of information she learned as she transformed her cleaning business from using toxic chemistry to safe, effective, inexpensive homemade household cleaners. By 2013, she was collaborating with the Learning Disabilities Association of Maine to advocate for safer chemicals in our homes. She is honored to collaborate again with the LDA during this Virus Crisis, to share safe and effective housekeeping strategies for keeping us all safer during this trying time. She lives in Lewiston, Maine as an ally at Sophia’s House, a combined residential apartment house and recovery house for women healing from sex trafficking, addiction and incarceration, where she continues to sustainably keep house and teach the same.

Alexandra Scranton is the Director of Science and Research at Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE). Alex authors WVE’s scientific reports and provides scientific review for the organization’s programs. Prior to working at WVE, she worked in the epidemiology and statistics unit at the American Lung Association headquarters in New York. Alexandra currently sits on the Research Advisory Committee for the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and on the Institutional Biosafety Committee for Rocky Mountain Laboratories (a National Institutes of Health facility). She has a Masters degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and a BA from Amherst College. Alexandra lives and works in Woodland Park, CO, with her husband and two beautiful daughters.