After living in Flagstaff for 20 years, we moved to rural property north of Williams, AZ, for more space & more sustainable, off-grid living

With our three polyethylene cisterns, two water cubes and overflow barrels, we have over 15,000 gallons of storage capacity.

Collecting Our Water Supply From the Sky

Rain doesn’t fall as often in northern Arizona as it does in many other places around the county, but if you can catch and store it when it does—and have enough storage capacity—you can supply your home water needs year round.

That’s what we’re doing at our off-grid home north of Williams (south of Grand Canyon), and here I’ll show you how.

On a related note, the county where we live—Coconino County, Arizona—now has a rainwater harvesting system building code, and what you’ll see below meets those requirements.

Calculating Rainwater Collection

So, just how much water can we collect from the sky?

The answer depends on the square footage (area) of the roof that’s “serviced” by our gutter system and, of course, the amount of precipitation we get, both rain and snow—and, yes, it does snow, sometimes a lot, in northern Arizona.

There are a number of rainwater harvesting calculators online, where you can plug in your own numbers.

Here’s one of them from WaterCache. (Just search “rainwater harvesting calculator” and you’ll find others.)

We have two buildings hooked up to our rainwater harvesting system: our house and our workshop/garage, with an combined roof area of approximately 3,000 square feet. Plugging that into the rainwater harvesting calculator, that’s 1,869 gallons per inch of rain. (Of course, snow is different because an inch of snow is less water than an inch of rain.)

If you input the average annual rainfall where you live, you can guesstimate how much you’d be able to collect in a year.

Here, midway between the small towns of Williams and Grand Canyon Junction, AZ, the average is 22″ of rain per year—although we’ve been in drought conditions for some time, so it’s often been less than that—along with 65″ of snow, which is (according to NASA’s 10-to-1 ration of snow: liquid) another 6.5″ of water. At 28.5 inches of precipitation per year and our roof collection area, that would be 52,332 gallons. That’s a lot of water!

Of course, you can’t count on averages on a year-to-year basis—sometimes it’s more, but oftentimes not even close—so we knock that figure down quite a lot.

But, with our average water usage of 1,500 gallons per month (18,000 gal/year), which we determined from past water bills when we weren’t being conservation-minded, we could easily get by on less than half of those 52,000+ gallons.

You can look up your area’s average annual rain and snowfall here at USClimateData.

A Roof and Gutter Rainwater Collection System

Just before the start of this year’s monsoon season, which is roughly from mid-June through the end of September (but often starts a bit later and ends sooner), we had the gutters installed on our newly constructed house. It literally rained the next day, for the first time in about two months.

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Our gutters collect from almost every part of the roof—anywhere it’s possible—and the same for the workshop. The shop was built first and had gutter and the first cistern installed about six months earlier than the house, so that tank was already full when the rest of the system was installed.

One month later, all of our tanks and overflow cubes and barrels were full as well. Needless to say, now we wish we had more tanks!

There’s approximately 150 of gutter on our house and almost as much on our workshop/garage.

Storage Capacity and Overflow Considerations

If you can’t catch and store it all when it falls, then, quite obviously, you’re going to lose out on some water. But how much storage capacity is too little and how much is too much?

That’s a tough question to answer because, for one, you’re using the water you collect all the time, at least if you’re home most every day.

And, while you certainly don’t need storage capacity that equals a full year’s collection potential, neither do you want your tank(s) frequently overflowing—especially if it rains and/or snow melts during certain seasons or concentrated times of the year. In those cases, you could get a large percentage of the annual precipitation during just a few months of the year, like we do during monsoon season.

While adding more tanks, or switching out to a larger cistern at a later date, is certainly an option, that would be more expensive and add logistical issues compared to installing all the storage capacity you’ll need at the outset.

Based on other people’s experiences with rainwater harvesting in our area, we went with three 5,000-gallon cisterns, plus two 275-gallon “auxiliary” cubes, for our home and workshop collection system.

Below, I’ll explain why it’s best if your main storage tanks, particularly any that will be interconnected, are the same size and dimensions.

Raising the Overflows

In the photo below, a pipe from the overflow bulkhead brings any overflow water away from the tank (so it doesn’t shoot out or run down the side) to a 50-gallon rainwater barrel, which itself has an overflow. There’s also a spigot at the bottom of the barrel so we can easily use that “bonus” water from there.

The overflow pipe is raised a little, to allow the cistern to fill all the way to the actual 5,000-gallon line.

We raised the overflow pipe a little so the tank can fill all the way to the true 5,000 gallon line.

Why It’s Important to Equalize a Multi-Tank System

When the architect who drew up our building plans, including the rainwater system first told us about equalizing our tanks, we did a little experiment in our kitchen to prove to ourselves that what he was saying was true. (Not that we doubted him—he has a similar system, himself.)

I don’t have a picture of that experiment, but we took three plastic bottles of the same size—although you can do this with different-sized bottles—connected near the bottom with straws. This mimicked how our real tanks would be connected by PVC pipe between their outflows. Then we filled one of the bottles and watched how the water went from that bottle to the second and then the third, until it had equalized among the three bottles.

Next in our experiment, we put a block under one bottle to raise it up a bit and repeated the process. The result: the raised bottle ended up with less water in it than the other two once the three had equalized.

So, in real life, if your tanks are interconnected but are at different elevations, one will overflow before the others, while the other(s) will never completely fill.

That’s why it’s important, if you have multiple tanks in your system, that the overflows are all at the same elevation. This means you may have to use a transit (often used on construction sites) or other tool to get the tanks as close to level with each other as possible.

If you’re required by code, or by necessity due to how cold it gets in your area, to partially bury your tanks like we’ve done, you’ll probably need to bury them at different depths in order to make them all level at the overflow. If you have a flat or mostly flat area, that difference may be inches or even fractions of inches. But if you have some slope between tanks, it would be a much bigger difference.

An Important Note

In order to bury water tanks completely, you’d need tanks specifically designed for that. The polyethylene tanks you see in our photos are not designed for being buried. In fact, the manufacturers of these tanks suggest you don’t bury them at all—but if you do, not to go beyond halfway up the straight sides.

There are tanks with reinforced sides that can be buried deeper. So be sure you’re getting the right kind of tanks for your situation.

As mentioned, you can do all this equalizing with tanks of different sizes and dimensions, but that does make things more complicated when it comes to leveling them.

Our three 5,000-gallon storage tanks are buried to varying depths so that they’re all at (almost) the same level or elevation.

A Network of Underground Water Pipes

Once our tanks were partially buried to a minimum depth of 31 inches per county code and equalized, it was time to hire a backhoe operator to dig trenches—about 150 feet of them in total—to connect the tanks and bring the water into the house below grade.

One thing we also did was install shutoff valves on each tank’s outflow, so we’d always be able to isolate tanks (i.e., for cleaning, repair, water management, etc.). Once the tanks and trenches were back-filled, the shutoffs were (and are) still accessible via access tubes. A homemade “key” allows us to turn the valve handle, to open or close it. This is similar to how you’d use a water key to shut off a municipal water supply at your home.

Testing Underground Water Pipes

Before we backfilled the 150+ feet of water pipe, per county code we air-tested the system. For a non-pressurized system like ours, we tested it to 30 psi, making sure it held for at least 15 minutes. It actually held at that level for days.

Approximately 160 feet of PVC pipe, buried a minimum of 31 inches deep per code, connect our three large cisterns, one on either end of the house and the third on the workshop.

Screens and First Flush Diverters

It’s not only required by our county code but it’s also a good idea to screen and filter the water as it falls on your roof and makes its way through the gutters to your tanks.

Heading down the downspout, the water first passes through a “leaf filter”—basically a screen that catches the bigger stuff, like plant material or whatever other items might end up on your roof—and then goes into the first flush diverter.

A first flush diverter, also called a roof washer, is a very simple device that basically removes the initial flow of water from a rainwater harvesting system. The first pass of water in a storm washes your roof of all the sediments that have collected since the last time it rained or snowed/melted. This is intended to help ensure cleaner water goes into your tanks.

First flush diverters are now required by code in our county, but not everyone agrees that they’re such a good idea, and I know some people remove them from their systems once inspected and approved by the county. Here’s a good article about the pros and cons of first flush systems: To First Flush or Not to First Flush.

Leaf screens and first flush diverters (vertical PVC on the right side of the picture, against the house) are required parts of a rainwater harvesting system in Coconino County.

Optional Extra Gutter Guards

Rainwater Purification and Disinfection: Are They Necessary?

Yes, according to county code here, they are. But, like the leaf screens and first flush diverters, even if they weren’t part of the code, disinfecting and purifying rainwater for drinking and other potable water uses is a good idea. After all, I did mention that dead mouse we found in our gutter. Not to mention bird poop on the roof and other goodies that float around in the air and get mixed up in rain and snow.

So, we purchased a 10 GPM (gallon per minute) Pulsar Quantum Disinfection System, which requires no power, and a BBF Series 2 Whole House Filtration System with a 5-micron pleated filter and carbon block filter from US Water Systems.

Shut-Off Valves on the Filtration and Disinfection System

In the photo below, you can see the we have shut-off valves (red handles) both before and after the filter (blue) and disinfection (smaller, black) units. These are shutoffs are required by code and also necessary to turn the water off when we need to change the filters in either device. (Note that the white “wands” sitting on top of the filter unit are tools used to unscrew the housings to change the filters inside either unit.)

Filtration and disinfection system

Our Water Test

Per the county’s rainwater harvesting code, we needed a water quality test to present to the inspector once the full system was in place. While the code doesn’t specify what exactly should be tested for, we requested a bacteria test and another for zinc. Zinc is present in metal roofs, particularly in galvanized metal, which ours is not. But we wanted to prove that to the county.

Our water test came back “clean.” We passed with an “A” on all counts.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2022 Deb Kingsbury

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Originally Appeared Here

Sept. 9, 2022, 6:36 PM

The Transportation Department would have to develop a national aviation preparedness plan for communicable disease outbreaks within two years of enactment under a modified version of H.R. 884.

The plan would, at a minimum, provide airports and air carriers with a framework to align their individual emergency response plans as well as enhance the aviation industry’s coordination with the federal government. The plan would also have to include a process to identify appropriate personal protective equipment for frontline employees that would reduce the likelihood of exposure and ways to clean, disinfect, and sanitize aircraft and airports.

The Transportation Department …

© 2022 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

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Originally Appeared Here

Join Lancaster’s Parks, Arts, Recreation and Community Services Department and the Museum of Art and History from 4-9 p.m., Sept. 17, for a variety of family-friendly activities.

This free general admission event will be held at American Heroes Park (701 West Kettering St.) and includes live music, cultural performers, chalk artists, a car show, arts and crafts, a beer garden, food trucks and more and is part of the Antelope Valley Walls Festival 2022.

The festival will celebrate the addition of 15 new murals, from Sept. 11-17, in Lancaster and Palmdale and will include exclusive live performances from The Long Shadows, with performances from artists like Clem Burke, the drummer from Blondie, Eurythmics, International Swingers and Empty Hearts; Mike Cripps, the guitarist from LA Guns and Brutalists; Gary Twinn from Twenty Flight Rockers and International Swingers; Luke Bossendorfer, the guitarist from Quireboys and Glimmer; and Gaz Ivin, bass player from Dexy’s and  Quireboys. Local teen cover band Skitty Diggs will also perform.

The cultural performer’s stage invites Hula school and dance studio, Hula from the Heart, to immerse guests in traditional and modern hula. Studio8135 from Littlerock will share the tradition of Mexican Folklorico dance. In addition, Local Palmdale musician David Mountain will share his original music.

Guests are encouraged to snap photos with a large art installation by the City of Lancaster’s community engagement artist, Vojislav Radovanović.

Family fun includes glitter and balloon art, a bounce house, face painting and arts and crafts. Food from various food trucks and drinks from the Lucky Luke beer garden will be available. Join Chalk Mafia for their live chalk event including the sidewalk works of 10 professional artists or listen to spoken word performances hosted by Poetry Circus.

The entrance to the Antelope Valley Walls Festival will be on Kettering Street. Street parking is available to festival visitors in the neighborhood surrounding American Heroes Park and on Lancaster Boulevard. Overflow parking will be allowed in the parking lot at Boeing Plaza on West Lancaster Boulevard.

Those attending the festival should bring water in refillable bottles (no glass), sunscreen, sunglasses, lip balm, comfortable shoes, hand sanitizer/disinfectant wipes, ear plugs, a sweater or light jacket and a blanket or folding chair.

The following items are not allowed: large coolers, glass containers, knives, swords or other weapons; outside alcohol, drugs or drug paraphernalia (to include cannabis and cannabis products; prescriptions must be properly labeled in containers that match the holder’s ID); tarps or tents, Sharpies, markers or paint pens; personal vehicles or skates, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, hover boards, Segways, electric scooters; drones or remote control vehicles or toys; and unleashed animals. Dogs on leashes are permitted.

Masks will not be required and vaccination status will not be checked, but those attendees experiencing COVID-19 symptoms are asked to stay home. This is a non-smoking event. All City of Lancaster community events are gang-free, no-colors events.

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Originally Appeared Here

Preventing Mold Outbreaks this Hurricane Season

By Mechele Agbayani Mills

“Water damage restoration can be as simple as vacuuming up water and drying out a room, or it can involve rebuilding entire sections of your home. When contemplating the cleanup of mold or water damage, verify the extent of the problem and contact a trustworthy water damage restoration company.” Mechele Agbayani Mills, President, and CEO of BBB

Severe storms, a humid climate, leaky pipes, or continuous rain can make homes susceptible to flooding and mold.  When excessive moisture or water accumulates indoors, excessive mold growth will often occur, particularly if the moisture problem remains undiscovered or unaddressed.

How can you tell if you have mold in your home? The EPA states that if the home smells moldy, but cannot be seen, if water stains are present, or if you are aware of water damage, there could be mold present as well. Mold may be hidden in places such as the backside of drywall, wallpaper or paneling, the top side of ceiling tiles, and the underside of carpets and pads, etc. Other possible locations of hidden mold include areas inside walls around pipes (with leaking or condensing pipes), the surface of walls behind furniture (where condensation forms), inside ductwork, and in roof materials above ceiling tiles (due to roof leaks or insufficient insulation).
Choosing a company to clean up mold. BBB warns people to research carefully when choosing a professional to remediate flood and water damage or to clean up mold.

Work with your insurance company. An insurance agent may be able to recommend a reliable and reputable water damage restoration company. Contact them first to determine what your insurance policy covers and the process for filing a claim.  Contact your insurance company and inquire about policy coverage and specific filing requirements to initiate the claim process. If the home, business and/or vehicle was damaged, document the damage by taking pictures or videos if possible. Recognize the difference between flood insurance and homeowner’s insurance. Flood damage is typically caused by water that has been on the ground before damaging your home. Water damage occurs when water causes damage before it comes in contact with the ground (broken pipes, a leaky roof, etc). These claims would likely be covered by homeowner’s insurance.

Do what you can to mitigate further damage. Dry out and disinfect impacted areas as soon as possible to help prevent mold. If you have concerns about wet carpet or rugs, start running fans and dehumidifiers. Consult an expert to see if carpet, rugs and furnishings can be salvaged.

Check the company’s history with the Better Business Bureau. You can review the water damage restoration company’s complaint history and details to determine if they have a track record of responding to and resolving BBB complaints at BBB.org  Always do your research first.

Verify the company’s license.  Confirm the contractor is properly licensed, insured and registered for the scope of work they will be completing. For example, simply vacuuming up water and drying out a room may not need a license but once the company starts tearing out cabinets and walls then a license may be needed.

Make sure the business has extensive experience in cleaning up mold. Ask for references from the business and contact these references for more information. Also, ask family and friends if they have worked with a water damage restoration company or a mold remediation expert in the past and had a favorable experience.

Obtain at least three bids. Don’t simply hire the first business that contacts you or one that offers the lowest bid; evaluate the services and offerings of at least three businesses and then make your decision.

Understand Assignment of Benefits contracts.  Beware of contractors who claim to be insurance claim specialists and may ask you to sign an agreement to allow them to contact your insurance company and seek approval of repairs for you. Many unscrupulous businesses have tricked consumers into signing a work estimate without reading the fine print, which commits you to automatically contract with their business if your insurance claim is approved.

Be wary of contractors going door-to-door, especially if they use scare tactics. Obtain a contract that specifies the work to be done, the price breakdown for labor and materials and an agreed upon timeline. Never feel pressured into signing on the spot and always seek at least three estimates prior to making a commitment. Avoid paying with cash for the entire job up front.

Find a mold removal company near you that you can trust. Please report fraudulent activity or unscrupulous business practices to BBB Scam Tracker.  Remember, great businesses are out there. Always look for the BBB seal; it’s the Sign of a Better BusinessSM . Start with companies you can trust by going to bbb.org.

Mechele Agbayani Mills is president and CEO of BBB

About BBB: BBB is a nonprofit, business-supported organization that sets and upholds high standards for fair and honest business behavior. Most BBB services to consumers are free of charge. BBB provides objective advice, free BBB Business Profiles on more than 5.3 million companies, 11,000 charity reviews, dispute resolution services, alerts and educational information on topics affecting marketplace trust. Visit bbb.org for more information. BBB Serving Central East Texas was founded in 1985 and serves 19 counties.

 

 

 

 

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Originally Appeared Here

Fried “pescaíto” is very tasty, as well as most stews and fried foods… that produce strong odors that spread throughout the house.

The smell of food sometimes it’s unavoidable, even if you take all the precautions, like closing the doors or using the exhaust fan.

The problem appears when you are going to receive guests, and you do not want them to come into the house and smell like fried food. You can always use an air freshener, but it’s still putting a chemical into the air.

The most effective is remove food odorinstead of hiding it. There are many ways to do it, but today we are going to focus on a couple of tricks the French use to get rid of the smell of fried foodaccording to the website Apartment Therapy.

The fish smell it is one of the strongest that is generated in the kitchen, and one of the most difficult to remove.

What they do in France is place a container with distilled white vinegar in the place where you want to eliminate the smell of fried food. The acid contained in the vinegar neutralizes the bad smell. In just 15 to 30 minutes, it will be completely gone.

White vinegar is a powerful natural cleaner and disinfectant, and has many uses in the kitchen. It cannot be missing in any house.

If the smell is very strong and you are in a hurry to eliminate it, we go for the second trick. Consists in put water to boil, and add a few slices of lemon. This fruit has acid like vinegar, but when cooked it will evaporate and reach the air, where it can cancel odors more effectively.

They are simple tricks to put into practice, and very cheap, so you do not lose anything by trying them and seeing if they work, after cooking some fried foods, especially if it is fish.

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Originally Appeared Here

Ho Pei Wah Laura, Deputy Director of Nursing at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, won the Exemplary Leader Award at the COVID Public Sector Transformation Awards Ceremony this year for her work in leading nurses in the battle against the pandemic.

‘Innovation’ – with this one word, what comes to mind?

Perhaps it’s the numerous inventions that have changed our world for the better. The ubiquitous light bulb that allows lives to continue even after the sun sets; the smartphones that today have become an encyclopaedia, dictionary, telephone, and more; or the planes that allow us to travel across the world in mere hours instead of months.

Innovation, however, doesn’t always need to be revolutionary. For Ho Pei Wah Laura, Deputy Director of Nursing at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), innovation is “prudent”.

“I wasn’t born from a silver spoon,” she told GovInsider. With limited resources at home, she watched her mother come up with inventive and frugal ways to address day-to-day grievances.

Raffia strings became makeshift window grills when her mom strung them across their flat’s windows to prevent birds from flying in and stealing food; while recycled materials were sewn together to create a trendy school bag when a young Laura was envious of her friends having fancy bags in school.

“Innovation, really, should not start with high costs,” she says.

It is this humble perspective of innovation that Ho is bringing to the halls and wards of TTSH.

Simple innovations to make a difference

Ho was one of the pioneers seconded to TTSH’s Kaizen Office when it was first incepted in 2008 – a department named after the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, with a mission to improve processes in the hospital through innovation and design thinking.

“They needed a nurse who had that knowledge and insight because we know many of the operational processes,” she explains. It is this awareness of the numerous workflows in the hospital that allowed Ho and a fellow nurse to devise ingenious, yet simple, ways to improve efficiency in the hospital.

With just cardboard at their disposal, Ho worked with her team to design a makeshift trolley that could hold up to six sets of patient case notes each. These trolleys were stationed at each ward cubicle.

Previously, doctors kept their case notes in a central trolley that was wheeled around the wards. Every time a doctor had to check on a patient, they spent time searching for where the trolley was on the floor, Ho explains. With this nifty invention, doctors no longer wasted time walking around searching for their case notes.

The trolleys went on to see 20 years of good use by doctors, and have just recently been phased out as hospitals made the switch to electronic medical records.

The invention of these trolleys also sparked a shift towards decentralisation in the hospital, as nurses also decided to station storage cabinets in individual wards rather than at a central location. These cabinets contained regular consumables that patients often needed, like diapers, so that nurses could easily access these items without needing to leave the ward.

Such a change improved patient safety on top of efficiency, Ho says. “If the nurse walks out [of the ward], patients are out of the line of sight,” she explains. But this change introduced new challenges as well, one of which was the need for a nurse to now have an additional role of topping up each of these six cabinets.

“Apart from fabricating, brainstorming, or innovating a prototype, we also have to refine our workflows,” Ho says. This is where the team looked at role redesigns within the healthcare team to maximise efficiency and maintain patient care standards. Rather than having a nurse fulfil these duties, they instead delegated it to the hospital’s custodians.

“[Innovation] cannot be a silo,” Ho says. “It’s important to involve more stakeholders in the co-creation process.”

An ecosystem of innovation

Ho has been at the forefront of inculcating this spirit of innovation across all levels of hospital staff from the onset – from nurses and doctors, to housekeepers and senior management. .

“When you’re in the Kaizen Office, you’re not wearing a nursing hat anymore,” she says. “You have to change your hat to reach out to all of TTSH’s population.”

Ho worked with a fellow nurse to develop a training curriculum to equip others with the relevant skills for problem-based innovation, like the Lean methodology. This is a set of principles often used by businesses to guide their improvement process.

“We used the ‘train the trainer’ approach, because we have more than a thousand staff, and it can’t be us training the whole hospital population on our own,” she explains. They worked with heads of departments to identify those keen to participate in this movement, and facilitated a series of workshops that will allow them to pass on the knowledge to their peers.

This meant having to cater to staff of all educational levels and language preferences, Ho says. The team had to find ways to conduct the sessions not just in English, but also in other languages like Hokkien or Tamil – whether by themselves or by bringing in external trainers.

Another factor of consideration was the staff’s work schedule, Ho says. These training sessions often had to be done over the weekends, as some staff cannot simply take time off from their duties since they had to care for patients.

These sessions combine a mix of classroom sessions and practical training, where participants would identify an area of waste or inefficiency and brainstorm ways to improve it. They would also be encouraged to showcase these ideas to their supervisors and the hospital’s senior management staff.

“We celebrate the success with them, and allow them to showcase themselves so they take pride in what they’re doing,” Ho says.

Innovator at work, nurse at heart

But while Ho’s role today has evolved beyond just clinical duties, she remains a nurse at heart and keeps her nursing hat close by. “Whenever I have little pockets of time, I will still go up to the wards and catch up with the nurses,” Ho says. In times when there is a shortage of manpower in the hospital, Ho will still change into her scrubs and join the nurses in their work.

“If it’s for patients, you need innovations that can sustain them from hospital to home.”
Ho Pei Wah Laura, Deputy Director of Nursing, Tan Tock Seng Hospital

An important part of patient care is being able to extend that care beyond the four walls of the hospital. “If it’s for patients, you need innovations that can sustain them from hospital to home,” says Ho.

“My hope and dream is that we should have more nurses in community nursing to manage patients [there],” Ho says. It’s very destructive to both patients and family members when a loved one is admitted to the hospital, she adds.

In delivering care to these community patients, Ho also says that she is frequently inspired by their ingenuity.

One patient that she visited had devised a way to tie bottles of cold water to the back of the fan, so that the fan would blow cool air instead. Others would use metal chopsticks to change wound dressings and disinfect these chopsticks by boiling them, as opposed to using the disposable forceps typically used by hospital staff which cost more.

Innovation for the future

With an ageing population in Singapore and a global shortage of nurses, Ho recognises the importance of innovation in preparing for the future.

Beyond simple process changes and modifications to existing tools, she is keen to look into how technology can come in to augment the work of nurses. Automation and AI, for instance, can help to alleviate the workload of nurses by taking over some of the menial and repetitive tasks that nurses currently do, like keying in records, Ho explains.

This will then help to free up the nurses’ time to do more valuable tasks like spending time with the patients and their families, she adds.

Ultimately, Ho’s passion for innovation can easily be traced back to her motivations for becoming a nurse in the first place – the component of caring. As a nursing director, the name at the front of her title is still “nursing”, she emphasises. It is with this in mind that she continues to pave the way for innovation in the hospital, led by a desire to improve the work of her fellow nurses while ensuring they can best care for their patients.

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Originally Appeared Here

Written by Anonymous

(Sasha Beck/Leafly)

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only, and is not a recommendation to break the law in any capacity. Leafly does not condone hallucinogenic (magic) mushroom growing in jurisdictions where it is currently illegal.  

Growing shrooms is a relatively simple process: add spores to food and a growth medium, and wait for nature to spin straw into gold. But psychedelic mushroom cultivation has been cloaked in confusion by decades of underground literature. New growers are met with a dizzying amount of terms to learn and told to buy a laundry list of lab equipment. Plus there are varying opinions and methods on how to grow them.

So we created a beginner-friendly guide to growing psychedelic shrooms. Our goal is to minimize initial expenses and keep things simple to set up first-timers for success.

How do you grow shrooms?

Most psychedelic mushroom cultivation methods share these core steps: 

1. Sterilization: A food source (rice, grain, manure, sawdust, popcorn kernels, bird seed, etc.) is first hydrated, loaded into Mason jars or Unicorn bags, and sterilized. Think of this as clearing a field before planting an orchard. Once competing organisms are gone, mushrooms can take hold easily.
2. Inoculation: The sterilized mushroom food is inoculated with spores or a living mushroom sample. These clones produce uniform mushrooms, or fruit, and multi-spore cultures can create countless variations. 
3. Germination & colonization: The inoculation is given time to mature and colonize the food source, becoming a white and fluffy mycelial network—like roots, but for mushrooms—and eventually, mushrooms. 
4. Fruit block assembly: After colonization, a grower breaks up the inoculated food and mixes it into a substrate, or growing medium—commonly coco coir, vermiculite, or sphagnum. The substrate provides the structure and water that mushrooms need to mature. Once thoroughly combined, the mixture is sealed inside a plastic bin.
5. Fruit block colonization: Inside a sealed bin, mycelium spread into the substrate. The goal is to establish a fruit block, in which the mycelium joins the food and substrate.
6. Pinning: Once the block is fully colonized, primordia—aka “pins”—begin to form, indicating that it’s time to introduce fruiting conditions. These pins will eventually swell and rise from the fruit block as mushrooms.
7. Fruiting: During fruiting, young mushrooms want high humidity levels and plenty of oxygen, circumstances referred to as “fruiting conditions.” As mushrooms grow, they consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide. Without the exchange of fresh air for CO2, mushrooms become susceptible to growth defects, dudding, and pathogens. If humidity levels drop too low, a substrate will eventually dry out and starve mushrooms of water.

What’s the easiest way to grow shrooms?

(Anonymous)

After trying numerous techniques ranging from PF Cakes to monotubs, we devised an easy, cheap, and quick way to grow shrooms in small quantities, that has a high success rate. It’s a simplified variation of the Uncle Ben’s or Broke Boi TEK. You won’t need any spendy specialized equipment, and the supply list is limited to items available at your local grocery or hardware store (with one or two exceptions).

The technique involves using bags of pre-cooked, pre-sterilized brown rice as mushroom food—classically, Uncle Ben’s or 90-Second Rice. The bags are modified for fresh air exchange and inoculated with a syringe of mushroom spore solution. 

The colonized rice is eventually broken up, mixed with a wet coco-coir substrate (growing medium), and compressed into a cake inside a plastic bin—referred to as a “monotub” or “shoebox.” Using pre-sterilized and hydrated mushroom food eliminates labor-intensive preparation, opening up the hobby to people who don’t own a pressure cooker or autoclave, an expensive device that uses steam and pressure to kill bacteria.

We found that rice cups are easy to work with. The project can be started and finished inside the cup, and dozens of cups can be grown in a single go. If a few cups don’t perform well, others likely will. Also, because they’re pre-sterilized and vacuum-sealed, they’re ideal for maintaining a low-touch process and avoiding contamination. 

It should be noted, this method saves on contamination risk and minimizes labor, but yields less: Little cups of rice make for small harvests. 

Regardless of the trade-offs, this technique is a great place to start and experience mushroom cultivation firsthand, and decide if the hobby is right for you.

For this method, you’ll need: spores or living mycelium from a psychedelic mushroom, Minute Rice brown rice cups, coco coir, and some basic household supplies that we’ll detail below. You should be able to pull this project off for roughly $100, depending on what you already have around the house.

Read more on mushrooms and psychedelics

Contamination is a mushroom grower’s arch nemesis

By and large, the biggest snag that new and seasoned mushroom growers experience is contamination. Microorganisms like bacteria, yeast, and fungi can out-compete a mushroom inoculant and ruin a growing project.

Signs of contamination include:

• Sour or funky odors
• Presence of exudates (a yellow liquid that is a defense mechanism)
• Brown or sludgy deposits of rotting rice
• Stalled colonization, or the formation of colored masses—most often green, red, pink, or competing shades of white

Contaminations typically arise from inadequate sterilization techniques, dirty inoculants/spore solutions, unsanitary cultivation environments, or even a grower’s body or clothing. Each time a project is handled or exposed to open air, a mushroom grower risks contamination.

In a homegrow environment that lacks laboratory-standard sterilization and clean-room equipment, our best defense against contamination is to interact with a grow project as little as possible. 

How long does it take to grow shrooms?

(Iarygin Andrii/AdobeStock)

The prep and inoculation phases can be knocked out in an afternoon. After inoculation, colonization can take anywhere from two to eight weeks, depending on environmental conditions, genetics, and inoculation technique. Once the cups are colonized and birthed, pins and fruits will form in about one to four weeks. 

A full growth cycle of mushrooms can take anywhere from one to three months.

What type of shrooms should I grow?

Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms—aka “cubes”—are the de facto species of choice for both amateur and experienced shroom cultivators. The species is prized for its worldwide availability, potent psychoactive properties, and ease of cultivation. 

A saprophytic decomposer species, cubensis eat dead organic matter. Where other psychedelic species prefer particular hardwoods, cubes are far less picky and can get nutrition from whole foods, manure, and decomposing organic waste.

The majority of commercially available psychedelic mushroom spores are cubensis subspecies: Names like Golden Teacher, Yeti, and Penis Envy are all offshoots of the cubensis, arising from mutations found in the wild or discovered by multi-spore inoculations and stabilized over time. 

You’ll notice we’ve been careful to avoid the term, “strain.” That’s because the mushroom community shuns the word, instead favoring “subspecies.” Unlike cannabis grown from seed, hundreds, if not thousands, of unique subspecies can result from a single multi-spore inoculation. So the concept of a strain doesn’t accurately describe what a person gets when they buy a spore syringe for growing mushrooms.

Related

Are Penis Envy mushrooms actually 2-3x more potent than other strains?

Supplies needed to grow shrooms

You’ll need the following supplies for the inoculation phase:

• Spore syringe or liquid culture ($5-25)
• Minute Rice Brown Rice Cups ($2-3/four cups)
• Micropore Tape
• 2 or more 6-quart Sterilite Totes, or similar plastic boxes ($1-2 each)
• Nitrile gloves
• Rubbing alcohol ($2-3)
• Bleach
• Spray bottles for alcohol and bleach
• Fine-mist bottle for water
• Air Disinfectant
• N95 mask ($1-2)
• Torch (butane, propane, or MAPP gas), alcohol lamp, or similar

Supply list for the substrate phase: 

• Coco coir
• Vermiculite (optional)
• Gypsum (optional)
• Distilled water 
• 5-gallon painters bucket and lid
• Nitrile gloves
• N95 mask

How to grow psychedelic mushrooms

(Anonymous)

Mushroom growing can be broken down into seven phases: 

• Preparation
• Inoculation
• Colonization
• Substrate assembly
• Birthing
• Fruiting
• Harvest

Preparation

Preparation and inoculation can be done in an afternoon.

Once you’ve bought your supplies, you’ll need to pick a work area and sanitize it as deeply as possible. And we mean deeply.

Your work area should be away from any sources of moving air like drafty windows, air vents, or doors to the outside. If vents are present, close or seal them off with plastic sheeting and tape. Always shut off AC units or central air before working on a mushroom growing project. 

Don’t work in a carpeted room if possible—carpets are notorious for trapping contaminants. 

Ideally, you should wipe down walls and clear dust from all surfaces, and vacuum or sweep and mop your work area. Work top to bottom and using rubbing alcohol or bleach.

Set up a table and spray it down with rubbing alcohol. Stainless steel tables are the standard, but anything non-porous will work. 

Spray the air with Lysol or a similar aerosol disinfectant designed for mitigating airborne contaminants.

After the room is sanitized, we recommend cleaning your body. Mycologists often prepare for inoculation similar to how a surgeon scrubs down for surgery. Take a shower, brush your teeth, and put on clean clothes. Right before heading into your work area, wash your hands with soap. 

Once you and your work area are clean, put on an N95 mask and enter the room.

Inoculation phase

Gather the spore syringe and rice cups, as well as the torch, micropore tape, rubbing alcohol, paper towels, and nitrile gloves. Wipe everything with rubbing alcohol, and line it up on the table.

To inoculate, first, vigorously shake your spore syringe for a few minutes, making sure to break up any clumps of spores. Spores need to be evenly distributed through the solution. 

Next, flame-sterilize the syringe needle. The needle should get red hot. 

Note: don’t break the factory seal on the rice cup—that stays sealed until later. Don’t use too much solution, as excessive moisture levels will encourage wet rot and bacterial infection.

When the needle has cooled, puncture the plastic covering on a rice cup in the middle and dispense between 0.5-1cc of spore solution.

After inoculation, use the needle tip to make a dozen or so additional holes in the rice cup for air exchange, within ¼” of the inoculation site. Then cover the holes with two pieces of micropore tape, working quickly to avoid contamination.

The spores now have a source of food and will germinate. 

Repeat this process for each cup, sterilizing the needle between inoculations.

To minimize the risk of contamination, try to avoid moving your hands around a lot and keep your work surface wet with rubbing alcohol throughout the process.

Colonization phase

After inoculation, store the rice cups inside a 6-quart Sterilite plastic box tote or similar plastic container and close the lid. 

Spores will begin to germinate, pair up, and exchange genetic information, maturing into a mycelial network.

To encourage a timely rate of colonization, store the cups at around 65°F. Warmer temps will encourage a quicker colonization, but anything past 70-75°F can awaken dormant contaminants. Keeping the environment cool will elongate colonization and stave off competing microorganisms.

Once a week, gently agitate your rice cups in a back-and-forth or swirling motion, but don’t shake the cup up and down. Doing so can expose grains of rice to the inoculation area, where contaminants are most likely to be hiding. 

You can monitor the colonization process by holding a cup up to a lamp: The dense mycelium restricts light from passing through, thereby appearing whiter than the uncolonized top portion of the rice. 

(Anonymous)

Colonization usually takes between two to eight weeks. When the rice is fully colonized, it will solidify into a unified mass, eventually feeling heavy at the bottom of the cup. Colonization can be confirmed by shaking the cup. Once few or no loose grains are felt rattling around, move on to the substrate assembly and birthing phases of mushroom growing.

How to make a shroom substrate

When a rice cup is fully colonized, between a couple of weeks and a couple of months, you can move on to making a substrate, or growing medium, and birthing mushrooms. 

Make your substrate 8-24 hours ahead of time. 

For a substrate, most people use a combo of coco-coir, vermiculite, and gypsum—dubbed CVG—but it’s also fine to just use properly hydrated coco-coir. You can buy coco coir on its own or hydrate it yourself. 

Check out this video from Philly Golden Teacher on how to hydrate coco coir and make your own CVG. Both recipes require adding hot water to the materials and letting them cool for 5-8 hours.

“Field capacity” refers to the ideal amount of water in a substrate. A substrate that’s adequately hydrated to field capacity will establish Goldilocks-zone, aerobic soil conditions, and encourage healthy mushrooms. Field capacity is when just a few drops of water are produced when squeezing a handful of substrate.

Use a substrate within 24 hours. The longer substrate sits around, the more likely it is to become contaminated.

Birthing phase: How to make shroom cakes

(Anonymous)

Birthing only takes an hour or so, depending on how many rice cups you have. Before birthing, clean your work area again. Remember, your work area is like a surgical theater and you’re the doctor. Cleanliness and hygiene are a home mycologist’s best allies.

When you’re all cleaned up—wearing a mask and gloves—it’s time to birth your cups. 

First sanitize a spoon with rubbing alcohol, open a rice cup by breaking the seal, and break up the consolidated rice. Add a small handful of substrate to the cup and mix it in with the inoculated rice. 

Once the rice is evenly distributed throughout the substrate, gently compress the mix and add another layer of substrate. This layer will serve as a barrier between open-air contaminants and the rice mixture.

Now cups can be introduced to fruiting conditions.

Shroom fruiting phase

(Anonymous)

What are fruiting conditions for shrooms?

Mushrooms need a humid environment and fresh air. To create such an environment, we use a well sanitized 6-quart Sterilite plastic box. After disinfecting the plastic box with rubbing alcohol, spray the inside with a fine-mist water bottle to increase humidity. 

Put the cups inside the plastic box with the lid turned upside down—this leaves a small gap for air exchange, allowing fresh oxygen to displace the CO2 that mushrooms make while growing.

What grow light should I use for shrooms?

You don’t need to do or buy anything fancy. The diffused light of a window will work (the easiest option), as well as fluorescent lights and LEDs that mimic the spectrum of the sun. If you grow weed and have a T5 or T8 fluorescent tube hanging around, you can use that. The light simply needs to warm the box.

Some mushroom growers swear by a 12-hour light/12-hour dark cycle, which can be achieved with an outlet timer, but through observation, we feel that regulating temperature fluctuations is more important than cycles of light and dark. 

Regular fluctuations in temperature create condensation and humidity. You won’t need to water cups directly, only mist the inside of the box before adding them in. This jumpstarts the formation of fruits via evaporation and rehydration of the substrate during day and night cycles.

Set it and forget it

Once you introduce your cups to fruiting conditions—high humidity, ample fresh air, and a day-night light cycle—simply leave your project alone. Resist touching it. No daily misting, fanning, etc. is needed. Patience is the key. 

If the condensation on the inside of the bin evaporates entirely before fruits form, remove the cups and mist the walls again. Never mist the cups, fruits, or pins directly. Too much water will drown the mycelium and encourage pathogens to take root.

How to fruit shroom cakes

The fruiting phase can be broken down into three stages: pinning, elongation, and sporulation.

What is pinning?

Mushrooms start as knots of hypha—like individual roots, but part of the mycelium—on the surface of a mycelial network. They grow where water droplets condense and evaporate. 

Imperceptible to the untrained eye, these knots are the beginnings of primordia—better known as “pins” due to their pinhead-like appearance. Their formation is usually referred to as “pinning.”

When do I mist my shrooms? Should I fan my box?

Only mist the walls and floor of the plastic box, and only when the last misting has evaporated, especially once pins form. Do not mist your cups, substrate, or fruit bodies. 

The plastic bin will first start to dry out where fresh air enters. If a dry zone doesn’t form after a few days, reposition the upturned lid to widen the gap to increase fresh air exchange.

Note: Some people close the lid and fan their fruiting chamber with the lid every so often. We don’t recommend this approach as it can mess with humidity levels. We suggest a passive fresh air exchange. As a rule of thumb, less interaction is more.

Elongation and sporulation stages

(Anonymous)

As fruits mature, they will elongate and gain mass. This is when adequate fresh air exchange becomes critical. If fruit bodies bruise to blue, this indicates a CO2 buildup and growth will soon halt if the rate of fresh air exchange isn’t increased.

Fruits are ready to harvest when the caps open up, signaling that sporulation will soon begin: The veil connecting the cap to the stem breaks and within days spores will be visible on the substrate below—the mushroom’s way of repeating the lifecycle. 

It’s common to harvest shortly before or after the veil breaks to avoid dark, inky spore deposits falling onto and coloring any underlying mushrooms.

How to harvest shrooms

(Anonymous)

When to harvest shrooms

When the veil connecting a mushroom’s cap to its stem breaks, it’s ready to harvest. 

To harvest, simply twist and pull each mushroom from the substrate. Alternatively, you can use a knife or scalpel to cut them free. 

Once harvested, remove and discard any substrate that’s attached to the bottom of your mushrooms.

How to dry shrooms

Mushrooms should be dried or eaten immediately following harvest. 

Mushrooms can be air dried or put in a food dehydrator on a low-temp setting (120°F or less) for about a day. Mushrooms are composed of up to 90% water, so growers need to be thorough when drying them.

Once cracker-dry, shrooms should be stored in a jar or similar container with a desiccant pack or two to maintain proper humidity levels. We recommend storing shrooms in a dark space that stays at room temperature, not in a freezer or fridge.

How do I get a second flush from my shroom cakes?

A “flush” is a harvest or generation of mushrooms that mature at the same time. You can usually get multiple flushes from a single fruit block or cake.

To get a fruit block to produce multiple flushes, first harvest all mushrooms and then gently cut off any remaining stumps or immature pins with a flame-sterilized blade. Be careful not to agitate the underlying mycelium or remove chunks of colonized substrate, which can contaminate the fruit block.

Then, hydrate the cups and box with a fine mister. 

Alternatively, some growers submerge their cakes in water after each flush, for around an hour to rehydrate the substrate. But this exposes the substrate contaminants, so dunk only if necessary.

If a cake shrinks during the first flush, you can add more substrate to fill it out. Make a new batch of substrate if needed.

Return the hydrated cups to fruiting conditions for a second flush. Second flushes tend to be larger than the first. Keep up sanitary practices to make sure fruit blocks stay clean. 

Third and fourth flushes are possible if the cups remain contaminant-free and are properly hydrated. 

What should I do with contaminated cups?

If a cup becomes contaminated, immediately quarantine it from the other cups. Don’t sniff or taste a contaminated project cup. Wearing a mask and gloves, remove it from the fruiting chamber, immediately seal it in a plastic bag, and throw it away outside in a trash can. Do not throw it in a compost pile. 

Additional resources

The Shroomery is one of the longest running social centers and living libraries for psychedelic mushroom cultivators. This busy community has everything a curious new myco enthusiast might want—grow journals, troubleshooting forums, contamination guides, and beyond. 

Perhaps the best point of entry into the notoriously opinion-dense Shroomery forums is the Simplified Cultivation Methods link list. It rounds up invaluable resources from trusted community members like Bodhi, Pastywhyte, Workman, and various other legends of psychedelic mycology. 

OG educator and Shroomery contributor Roger Rabbit’s video series Let’s Grow Mushrooms shows many modern cultivation techniques. An excellent primer on the hobby, videos cover everything from straw logs to working with agar.

YouTuber 90-Second Mycology guides the uninitiated through Uncle Ben’s TEK and fruiting from the bag.

YouTuber and Zen-like home mycologist Philly Golden Teacher offers a series of instructional videos that make complicated concepts and techniques approachable. Here’s his take on the Uncle Ben’s—aka Broke Boi—TEK.

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Originally Appeared Here

While cleaning freaks hail summer for extra daylight to be spent tidying up, we, the always busy New Yorkers, are not into wasting precious summer days on never-ending cleaning. That is why the main idea behind summer house cleaning is to organize it in a way that lets you clean less and make your home a safe place during the hot and humid season. Keep things as simple as possible, taking hard-to-clean household items away and paying special attention to the places that can potentially become an epicenter of germs and foul odors build-up. In this summertime cleaning guide, we have collected some best practices to help you make your summer cleanups a breeze.

Step zero: Declutter

Do you know the old cleaning axiom? You cannot clean through the clutter. You need to clear it first, taking away things you don’t use during summer and tossing (giving away) things you no longer need. During summer, your home is better off without all those knickknacks on the shelves and fluffy rugs on the floor. The more minimalistic your interior is, the less effort it takes to clean. So boxes and plastic containers are your best helpers in summer cleaning.

Step one: Beat the heat healthily

Whether you have an AC or air fans, it is crucial to sanitize these devices, making sure they don’t spread pathogens, pollen, and dust as they rotate the air. Vacuum your AC filter to remove the dust clogs and wipe it with a damp microfiber cloth. If you have air fans, wipe the blades down with a damp cloth and make sure you switch the blades’ direction counterclockwise. This helps the fan to make the air cooler.

Step two: Have mercy on your floors

If you are a happy owner of a patio or a backyard, you must already know this pain. All the dust, soil, and dirt from outside eventually settle on your floors. As a result, you have to mop more often in summer. Consider putting door mats at the entrances to trap the dirt and encourage your family members and visitors to take off their shoes when coming in.

Summer heat also takes a heavy toll on the carpets because we walk on them barefooted. To keep your carpeting fresh during the hot summer, use this simple homemade carpet refresher every time before you are going to vacuum. Shake ½ cup of baking soda and ½ teaspoon of your favorite essential oil (lemon or lavender oils are the best) in an airtight container until the soda dissolves. Sprinkle this refresher over your carpets and rugs and leave to work for 15 minutes. Then vacuum it all together with dust and debris as you would usually do.

Step three: Tackle those bad smells

Let’s face reality. A trash can gets stinky much faster in summer because high temperature accelerates rotting and bacterial growth. So anything that has to do with organic waste (be it a garbage disposal, trash can, or the drain) must be sanitized more often if you don’t want your kitchen to be filled with fetid odors. Take the trash bag out daily and disinfect the can every other week (or every time you notice leakage) using a heavy-duty disinfectant. A sprinkle of baking soda onto the bottom of the trash can helps keep it fresh longer.

There are lots of effective off-the-shelf chemical cleaners for drain or garbage disposal. However, if you want it cheap and natural, you can rely on the good old combo of baking soda and vinegar:

1. First, run very hot water for a minute.
2. Pour in a cup of baking soda. (For garbage disposal, turn it on for 10 seconds.)
3. Add a cup of white vinegar, cover, and let it work for 10 minutes.
4. Finalize with very hot (boiling) water.

Step four: Clean messy counters right away

Germs aren’t the only reason why you should keep your countertops clean and sterile throughout summer. Dirty dishes, greasy-sticky spills, and crumbs attract ants and other unwanted visitors who love partying on food messes. Don’t leave bugs a chance by washing dishes and cleaning food messes right away. Mix water and white vinegar in even proportions in a handy spray bottle, and wash your counters with it every evening before you go to bed. This natural homemade cleaner works in two ways, mildly disinfecting and repelling gross crawling creatures at the same time. It is also great for washing windows and removing sticky spills from the floors. Every modern cleaning agency that cares about eco cleaning uses similar way of disinfecting or they could use a special eco-friendly cleaners.

Step five: Do away with mold and soap scum

Your bathroom is another place that requires special attention during the hot and humid summer months. Here are some smart tips that will help you fight off mold and hideous soap scum and enjoy some really invigorating moments in your bathroom this summer:

• Ensure your bathroom is properly ventilated. Turn on a bath exhaust fan every time you take a shower and leave the bathroom doors open when you are done.
• To get mold out of your bathroom walls, spray a bleach-water solution (1:2 ratio) OR (not and) undiluted vinegar over them. Leave for an hour and rub with a (tooth)brush if needed.
• Keep your shower walls scum-free by spraying them from time to time with a safe homemade cleaner (mix 1 part vodka, 3 parts distilled water, and a few drops of your favorite essential oil).

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Originally Appeared Here

Recognizing the hard work of Environmental Services workers during ES Week; September 11– 17 

TORONTO, Sept. 8, 2022 /CNW/ – From September 11-17, organizations across the country are celebrating the hard work and dedication of frontline workers who sometimes go overlooked for their tireless dedication to patient surroundings – environmental services workers. This Environmental Services Week, CloroxPro® Canada is shining a spotlight on these champions across Canada’s hospitals and clinics, including those workers at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (HDGH). 

Frontline Worker at Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare. Photo Credit: Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (CNW Group/CloroxPro® Canada)

Environmental Services week is a time to show appreciation for the dedicated ES personnel. With everything that these past few years have thrown their way, ES workers have remained resilient in their efforts to help protect others from viruses and infections, well beyond COVID-19. They ensure healthcare facilities are safe places for patients, their families, and staff members.

“These last three years have been tough, to say the least,” says Bill Marra, President and CEO at HDGH. “Our ES workers have worked so hard to keep our patients and team safe and working in a clean environment. We’re happy to recognize our team for the work they’ve been doing and continue to do.”

At HDGH, ES workers depend on Clorox Healthcare™ Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaner Disinfectant Wipes for deep cleaning and disinfecting. These products are Health Canada-registered and are proven to be effective and safe to use on a variety of surfaces, when used as directed. The Clorox Healthcare™ Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaner Disinfectant Wipes kills SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19† in just thirty seconds and is compatible with equipment surfaces. 

“Now more than ever we need to be celebrating our frontline workers. Their dedication to patients and passion for their job are unmatched. And we really value our partnerships with HDGH,” said Barley Chironda, Sales Director and International Infection Control Specialist, CloroxPro Canada. “With the use of CloroxPro® products, ES workers can be confident they’ve cleaned and disinfected those hard to clean areas to help prevent the spread of illness causing germs.”  

“We’re here for patient care,” said Justin Quinn, Manager of Environmental Services & Material Management. “We measure cleanliness through best practices and with a 72 check-point in the Public Health Ontario (PHO) Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee (PIDAC) to clean over 1 million square feet of surfaces weekly. Our goal is to be considered the cleanest hospital in Ontario, and we want to do this while reducing our overall environmental footprint. Partners who understand our goals, like CloroxPro® Canada, help make this possible.”

About Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare

At Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, we are committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the Windsor–Essex community through the delivery of patient-centered, value-based care. Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is a unique community hospital offering services in Mental Health & Addictions; Rehabilitative Care; Complex Medical and Palliative Care; and Children and Youth Mental Health. We offer a unique blend of services including but not limited to community and home-based services. In collaboration with our healthcare and inter-sectorial partners, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare is providing care in new ways and in new locations throughout the region to address barriers, improve access and patient outcomes and improve the overall patient experience

About CloroxPro® Canada, a division of The Clorox Company of Canada

CloroxPro®encompasses professional healthcare, cleaning, and specialty offerings. Their wide range of solutions reflect a tradition of research and experience in cleaning, sanitizing and infection prevention for professional environments. Built on a century-long legacy, CloroxPro® is dedicated to providing proven commercial cleaning and disinfecting solutions to protect people and their environments. Where clean means everything.

† Per Health Canada’s list of hard-surface disinfectants with evidence against COVID-19, this product is considered effective against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. 

SOURCE CloroxPro® Canada

For further information: CloroxPro® Canada, Amanda Federchuk, [email protected]; Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Nicole Crozier, [email protected]

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Originally Appeared Here

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — New York City students across the five boroughs will return to public schools on Thursday for the first day of the 2022-2023 academic year without many of the strict health and safety measures that have been in place the last two years due to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

It will mark the first time in two years that students will see their classmates, teachers, and other school staff without a face mask requirement. There will be no social distancing or in-school random PCR testing, and classrooms won’t fully or partially close due to coronavirus cases.

At-home COVID-19 rapid tests will still be distributed and some vaccination requirements are still in place. Cleaning protocols and the Building Response Teams in schools will also be utilized going forward. All classrooms and common areas, like auditoriums and gyms, will have hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. High-touch areas, like doorknobs and water fountains, will be cleaned multiple times a day.

Every classroom will have at least two air purifiers. Cafeterias in bigger schools will be provided with large air units for added protection and window-based exhaust fans to provide additional air circulation.

Schools will be closed only when it is determined by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) that there is widespread transmission in the school, according to the city Department of Education (DOE). But with health and safety measures in place, the city expects that school closures will be limited.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), explained during a recent interview with the Advance/SILive.com, that this school year is beginning with the “next phase of the new normal.”

“I know that the children, the parents and the teachers deserve to go into this year with certain things settled — and as always, the schools, the parents, the teachers and community working together,” said Mulgrew. “They’ll do what they always do, which is take care of those kids.”

SOME VACCINE REQUIREMENTS STILL IN PLACE

There are also some vaccine requirements still in place in public schools. According to the DOE, the coronavirus vaccine is still required for all visitors entering school buildings, all DOE employees, other individuals who work in DOE buildings, and those participating in extracurricular activities deemed high-risk, including certain PSAL sports.

Sports considered high-risk include football, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, lacrosse, stunt and rugby. Additionally, a COVID-19 vaccination requirement applies to students participating in high-risk after-school extracurricular activities like chorus, musical theater, dance/dance team, band/orchestra (with concern for woodwinds), marching band and cheerleading/step team/flag team.

Borough President Vito J. Fossella and other Staten Island elected officials sent a letter last week to DOE Chancellor David Banks and DOHMH Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan requesting the agencies reconsider the COVID-19 guidance ahead of the new school year.

The officials wrote in the letter that the vaccine requirements should be reconsidered for unvaccinated students who wish to participate in those activities, as well as the rules for parents — citing how important parent involvement is, especially after two years of interrupted school sessions due to the pandemic.

“While well-intentioned and noble, some of the decisions in the past have negatively affected many children,” the letter read. “Evidence suggests that cases of mental illness in school-aged children are on the rise and low-test scores are sadly becoming the norm. We urge you to reconsider and reverse the policies regarding unvaccinated parents and children.”

According to the DOHMH, many high-risk extracurricular activities are performed indoors, are strenuous, and entail closer contact than classroom activities.

“We thank the authors of this letter for raising these important issues with us and we look forward to continuing our dialogue with them in the days ahead,” said Patrick Gallahue, spokesperson for DOHMH. “We fully recognize the toll that COVID has taken on New Yorkers’ mental health, especially youth. We have made services for young people a high priority and aim to do even more.”

Gallahue continued: “We must add, however, that vaccination remains the single best protection against severe illness caused by COVID-19. Every action we’ve taken has been directed at preventing any more suffering from this terrible virus. We want to keep our children safe in class, in their school communities, and safe from COVID.”

NEW SCHOOLS

Some students will enter a completely new school building this month.

The new Evelyn King Campus in Stapleton will house Waverly Academy for Empowered Learners (WAELS) and The Young Women’s Leadership School (TYWLS), while also providing seats to students in District 75.

Amenities in the building include: a computer classroom; art classrooms; gymnasium; playground; full kitchen complex; library; guidance and medical suites; science resource room; music room; exercise room; administrative suite; conference room; teacher work room, and a parent and community room.

And the new Hungerford School has been built at the Michael J. Petrides Educational Complex — in a parking lot in the rear of the Sunnyside campus.

The new state-of-the-art building is fully accessible to serve the specialized needs of all students. Amenities include braille signage in every room, elevators on all floors and wheelchair ramps. Classrooms are equipped with hearing loops — a wire that circles a room and is connected to a sound system, which hearing-impaired students can connect to via their hearing aids or cochlear implants.

A NEW SCHOOL YEAR

The DOE has a list of reminders for public school parents, like filling out important health forms, updating contact information, and more. It includes:

• Updating your contact information by signing in to your New York City Schools Account (NYCSA). If you don’t have an account, get started at New York City Schools Account (https://www.schools.nyc.gov/learning/student-journey/nyc-schools-account).
• Filling out important health forms, like if your child needs medications or treatments throughout the school day. You can learn more online about Health Services in schools.
• Downloading a printable copy of the 2022-23 school year calendar.
• Finding contact information for your child’s school with the Find a School tool.
• Completing necessary immunizations.
• Learning about COVID-19 health and safety in schools.

The first day of school for all public school students is Thursday. The city Department of Education (DOE) academic calendar includes some two dozen days off between the first day and the last day of classes on Tuesday, June 27, 2023.

The last day of school is Tuesday, June 27.

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Originally Appeared Here