OpenClean Technologies Launch Hand-Sanitising Door Handle

Posted by Edward Jonkler on August 20, 2020

Cleverly coinciding with the government’s current ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme to encourage public spending in the wake of the pandemic, high-tech innovation company OpenClean Technologies have sped up their launch process and released their key product; a hand-sanitising door handle, originally designed to reduce hospital acquired infections. 

As the UK gets back to work, school and normal life new standards of cleaning are increasingly important for public safety, as well as to ensure staff and customers feel reassured that their health is not at risk. 

Although most employers and shop and restaurant owners have already begun extensive daily deep cleaning regimes in order to function almost ‘normally’ again, there are certain touch points within offices and restaurants etc. that remain at risk of passing on infection, and, fundamentally, keeping hands clean is a crucial way of reducing the spread of Coronavirus. 

The virus can survive on inanimate objects, including metal surfaces, and can remain viable for up to five days at normal room temperatures of 22 – 25 degrees celsius and humidity of 40 – 50 per cent (which is fairly typical of air-conditioned indoor spaces such as offices). Common touch points such as door handles therefore present a major threat. 

PullClean was invented by a group of Oxford academics, including a doctor, who felt that whilst working he did not have the opportunity to sanitise his hands enough during busy shifts, and needed a quick, cheap and efficient solution.

With the aim of making hand sanitising intuitive, rather than something easily forgotten and therefore placing others at risk, PullClean replaces the door handle in its entirety, so that users have no choice but to sanitise their hands every time they open and close the door. 

PullClean can be easily installed on any bathroom or toilet door, as well as hallway and office doors. A tube-shaped cartridge is placed in the centre of the door handle, which relates sanitiser when the paddle is pushed upon exit of the door; the cartridge can provide up to 400 uses. 

When placed on key touch points (door handles), PullClean breaks the chain of infection and keeps these shared spaces safe for all to use. In kitchens in particular, where users are touching taps, handles, buttons and surfaces, several times a day, infections are easily spread.

Installing a hand-sanitising door handle would ensure no harmful bacteria leaves the kitchen and therefore cannot be transmitted elsewhere within the office. 

Most places, as part of government guidelines, currently have ‘sanitising stations’ to ensure staff and customers are being careful, however will people be as vigilant in a month, or a years time? 

In comparison, studies thus far have shown that people are three times more likely to sanitise their hands where PullClean is installed. 

Therefore, as public trust is a key component of getting life back to ‘normal’, by installing PullClean establishments can prove that they have long-term plans to ensure customers and staff stay safe and hand sanitation remains a part of our daily routine. 

Though the team originally intended the product to be used in a clinical setting, with the UK government pushing Eat Out to Help Out this August, PullClean sped up their launch so as to help as many businesses as possible. 

Demand has already sky-rocketed in the UK’s hospitality and leisure sectors as business owners and employers are keen to get back to normal, whilst proving to staff and customers that they are committed to their health and safety. 

You can read more about PullClean here.

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