Nephros, Inc., a commercial-stage company that develops and sells high-performance water purification products and pathogen detection systems to the medical and commercial markets, announced the results of a study this summer of water safety issues in light of the COVID-19-related nationwide shutdown. As further described in a new academic paper available on the biology preprint site bioRxiv, from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Nephros collected and analyzed 88 water samples from a variety of occupied and unoccupied buildings, using its SequaPath pathogen detection system. Key takeaways from the study include: Bacterial counts in unoccupied, underused building plumbing systems were significantly higher—between...

ST. PAUL, MINN.—Ecolab, the global leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention solutions and services, received approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its Sink & Surface Cleaner Sanitizer. The product is the first registered by the EPA to kill the virus that causes COVID-19 in 15 seconds—the fastest product available. Ecolab’s advanced chemistries, including Sink & Surface Cleaner Sanitizer, are key to helping restaurants and other businesses meet heightened expectations for cleanliness and more stringent regulations to help reduce the risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 and other viruses. Sink & Surface Cleaner Sanitizer...

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.—In its first year of operation, Spotta’s Bed Pods have reduced the amount of bed bug incidents discovered by hotel guests from 50 percent to just 3.3 percent in its customers’ properties. The “always-on” monitoring service uses AI-driven recognition technology to identify insects and provide real time alerts. The Bed Pod enables hotels, other accommodation providers and their pest control partners to identify occurrences of bed bugs and treat the problem early, limiting the damage pests cause. Following its first year of real-world deployment in customer hotels—servicing over 91,000 room nights—52.2 percent of detections made by Spotta were in rooms...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—As companies, organizations and governments focus on safe and healthy reopening plans in response to the pandemic, more than 130 LEED projects have engaged the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Safety First pilot credits to support those efforts. The credits provide sustainable and healthy best practices that align with public health and industry guidelines and help address critical operations including indoor air quality, water systems, cleaning and re-entry. The Safety First credits are part of USGBC’s economic recovery strategy and reinforces that healthy people in healthy places is the fastest way to rebuild a healthy economy. The Safety First...

MIAMI—When Global Wellness Summit (GWS) delegates meet at The Breakers Palm Beach from November 8 to 11, they will experience a number of new technologies and creative moves that are “meeting firsts” and all designed to keep them as safe as possible. The GWS has been working overtime to invent new standards for a hygienic and healthy conference, and while it includes the “givens,” such as a smaller gathering (150 in-person attendees according to Beth McGroarty, V.P. of Research for the Global Wellness Summit), physical distancing, masks and temperature checks, the organization has gone much further: deploying cutting-edge air...

TORONTO—Tersano announces the launch of the iClean mini, a sleek, hand-held home device that employs the company’s patented Stabilized Aqueous Ozone SAO technology to deliver a new level of  cleaning, disinfecting and deodorizing for home and personal use. Consumers can now safely and effectively clean and disinfect their home and personal spaces without the fear of chemical contamination. The iClean mini creates Tersano’s proprietary SAO solution, which is compliant with the requirement established in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), to eliminate SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19. FIFRA is managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The coronavirus...

Every so often someone comes along in our industry with a grand idea to affect major change in hotel operations. I have been fortunate to meet Shawn Seipler, CEO of Clean the World, who has done so much to change the way our industry thinks and acts about soap and amenity waste. Shawn is based in Orlando. Another person I have met is also based in Florida but in Sarasota. His name is Richard Ferrell, and he is President of Purlin, LLC. I first wrote about Purlin in 2018. Richard’s vision is to dramatically change the way hoteliers think...

When cleaning your guestrooms after a guest has left pay special attention to the linens. In case you missed it, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month released the results of some Chinese researchers indicating significant spread of the Coronavirus on sheets and pillow cases by presymptomatic travelers—a very good reason not to used shake linens upon removal from a bed. The researchers studied two travelers who had been transferred to a hotel for a 14-day quarantine. They stayed at the hotel for just one night before being transferred to a hospital after symptoms began to appear. Approximately three...

SARASOTA, FLA.—Purlin, LLC, maker of recyclable linens for the hospitality industry, has won the Lee School Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Hospitality category. The Lee Business School at UNLV and Ted and Doris Lee Family Foundation created a worldwide $1,000,000 Lee School Prize for Innovation and Entrepreneurship with the goal of discovering and funding innovative technologies and solutions that make the food and beverage, hospitality, casino, sports and entertainment and travel industries a safe place for employees and guests in the post pandemic world. Purlin’s prize in the hospitality category is $250,000. There were 250 submissions from...

STOCKHOLM—Together with Stena Recycling, Electrolux has developed a vacuum cleaner made of 100 percent recycled and reused materials. The plastic and components originate from consumers’ electronic products, such as used hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, and computers. The project addresses some of today’s key recycling challenges while exploring circularity in household appliances. More than 400 million metric tons of plastic are produced globally every year, but less than 12 percent of this comes from recycled materials. Therefore, manufacturers have difficulty finding enough safe and consistently high-quality recycled material. As a pioneer, Electrolux was first in the industry in 2010 to raise awareness...