2020. COVID - 19 is apparently coming after plants too!
December 18, 2020
Open gallery
Hand sanitizer and bleach runoff fries and kills plants. Don’t use them to water your plants!
By Paola Cruz
The COVID-19 pandemic has made us become clean freaks now, hence why sanitizers were so rare at the beginning of the pandemic along with toilet paper. With all this overuse of sanitizers like bleach and hand sanitizer, no one’s stopped to think about how this could affect plants. Why are plants relevant to this conversation? Runoff of these chemicals can reach plants and likely harm them. Sophie Bell, Gregory Gisser, Zachary Mitchell, and Joseph Zippelli looked into this by pouring watered down bleach and hand sanitizer over Violets, Mums, hostas, and Kale. Although this is a sad way to study these effects, it did show that both bleach and hand sanitizer harmed the plants, which was indicated by them wilting. Since the pandemic isn’t over and
sanitizers are still being used heavily, it’s worth looking into how other sanitizers affect plants. In the meantime, remember: don’t water your plants with chemicals!