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You would think it would be easy to not contaminate yourself when draining or working with any of the accessories having to do with the black water tank but I have watched people and it just seems their minds must be somewhere else. The most common scenario that I saw was that the person puts on gloves, then drains the tank, touches everything with the gloves on including the doors when putting away parts. I have also seen people use their hose from the fresh water tank all along wearing these same contaminated gloves. The stomach flu? No, there actually isn't a stomach flu. It is the norovirus and you don't want to get it. It you haven't heard of it, learn about it: http://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/index.html A few years ago when our son with DS entered a day center, the whole family got it at one time since he brought it home to us. He doesn't attend day centers anymore and we become dedicated to keeping our hands clean. Dealing with the black water tank is something that you should not do mindlessly. Seems simple but there can be complications. And, yes, possibly you have been touching all these things and contaminating surfaces and didn't get sick but taking the chance to me would not be worth it. I've also seen people do some pretty gross things with the fresh water connections so we always let them run a little and wipe them down before attaching our hose. There are plenty of articles on the internet about handling the black water and it worth doing some research.
Good post. I totally agree, you must watch out for cross contamination. Take care when dealing with the black tank. In a somewhat related issue, our rv seasonal neighbor bought a new to him 5er with all the bells and whistles, looked great til the underbelly started to swell. Not sure why, but he cut it with a knife and raw sewage spilled out all over! Yuck, one hour before my kids were arriving to camp for the weekend. All is well now, but what a mess and for a guy who is disabled.
A recent study of the food industry showed that gloves were worse than bare hands. Chefs that wore gloves had higher contamination results than those that used bare hands and good hand washing practice.
As one chef put it...I can feel when my bare hands need to be washed. With gloves on I can't tell when they are dirty.
Maybe the same thing applies to holding tank dumping. My dad never wore gloves and I've never worn gloves...That's about 80 years combined RVing experience. Both he and I always had boraxo hand cleaner to clean up with. No "stomach flu" cases so far.
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"Small House, Big Yard "
"May the FOREST be with you" Alfa See-Ya 5'er and 2007 Kodiak C4500 Monroe
You would think it would be easy to not contaminate yourself when draining or working with any of the accessories having to do with the black water tank but I have watched people and it just seems their minds must be somewhere else. The most common scenario that I saw was that the person puts on gloves, then drains the tank, touches everything with the gloves on including the doors when putting away parts. I have also seen people use their hose from the fresh water tank all along wearing these same contaminated gloves.
Usually when setting up the last thing I do is connect the sewer hose and then throw away the gloves. When breaking camp because there are still a few things to do after I drain the tanks, I keep a bottle of antiseptic hand wash near by and will wash my gloved hands several times before I'm done.
If you are handling your own wastes, then everything in there is what you have in your body. Just something to think about.
Does everyone put on gloves, etc., when changing their babies/toddlers diapers, whether their own, their grandkids, friends kids, etc.? Or do we practice good hygiene and wash our hands when finished and clean off the surface?
We always dump our tanks the evening before we leave. Leaves less to do in the morning plus we will then travel with a small amount of fluid in each tank - the sloshing action helps keep sensors clean.
We've become a nation of germophobes and as a result of the over use of all types of antibiotics we have increasing numbers of drug resistance bacteria.
Barb
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Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
I wear pretty thick rubber gloves that get rinsed off before storing them again. Always hook up fresh water first then sewer and disconnect in the same order to minimize cross contamination. Keep hand sanitizer in the water hookup bay to sanitize afterwards. My gloves are easy enough to get off that if I need to touch anything that isn't contaminated I pull the right one off holding it with the left…the gloves are stiff enough to get back on without touching the outside with bare hands.
Mostly it's common sense…and fortunately both Connie and I learned about cross contamination throughout our careers…hers was in the medical laboratory field and mine in the nuclear submarine business where we had to frequently wear gloves to prevent contamination by low level radioactivity, it would get on your gloves and we were trained how to not touch things with potentially contaminated gloves or anything potentially contaminated without gloves. After removing them we scanned ourselves out with a radioactivity detector to verify nothing was on skin or clothing.
"We've become a nation of germophobes and as a result of the over use of all types of antibiotics we have increasing numbers of drug resistance bacteria."
X 2
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"Small House, Big Yard "
"May the FOREST be with you" Alfa See-Ya 5'er and 2007 Kodiak C4500 Monroe
To me, dealing with the black water tank which has been cooking under the coach isn't exactly like taking care of our personal hygiene and depending on what chemicals have went into the tank, there is room for concern. I generally don't wear gloves and have a routine when dumping black and gray water. If I have a cut or abrasion, I use gloves. I've seen many people take their sewer hose and stick it over the fresh water faucet to rinse it out. I do agree that the obsession with germs has went overboard but I think a lot of that has to do with marketing and selling products. I cannot believe how much space is dedicated in the store to products for "fresher" or to "refresh" something dirty - gee, just wash it rather than load it down with chemicals! We use a lot of vinegar for cleaning.
There is a problem with over use of antibiotics. One of our dogs was getting continuous ear infections and the antibiotics were not working. I bought an over-the-counter product for "antibiotic resistant" and it cleared up a year ago and it has not returned. Our son with DS has taken so much antibiotics but we have gotten away from it except in the most severe cases by using homeopathic medicine and other alternative medicines. A good immune system is priceless.
Found this cute article: http://www.thisoldcampsite.com/This_old_campsite2/Black_Water_Tank.html
-- Edited by SnowGypsy on Wednesday 20th of August 2014 11:25:28 AM
