Last week, after some of their colleagues tested positive for Covid-19, teachers at a Cape Town school refused to return to work until the school had a “deep clean”. This type of incident has played itself over and over across the country since the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, hit our shores.
A video shows this fogger being used to spray food in a supermarket. The spray has a fancy name: Nano Deionized Aqua Solution containing Nanolyte 815.312 Ag T ion+ formulation. The evidence that it is safe to spray this product on fruit and vegetables, and into the environment, is lacking. The company’s website does not display compelling evidence to support its claims, nor does it provide compelling evidence that its products have “absolutely no side effects or adverse effects on positive bacteria or human or animal tissue and health”.
NanoWorks indeed holds an NRCS certification, dated 13 December 2011, for the product Eco-Lyte “marketed as Nanolyte 815.312 Ag T ion +”. But the NRCS product description is:This is basically a standard household chlorine product. And, critically, as Steinman points out this product is not the “nano-silver complex” that NanoWorks claims in the name, but a sodium chlorite solution – chlorine in other words. “Chlorine is used as a disinfectant but does not last for months on end.
Effect of product to aquatic life: No evidence is currently available on this product’s effects on aquatic life.”