- Several French cities have decided to disinfect public space to stop the transmission of the coronavirus.
- Health authorities have warned of a potential danger to the environment.
- Each city has its recipe: Strasbourg sprays a “100% biodegradable” product and Marcq-en-Barœul, near Lille, hot water at high pressure.
Full protective suit, tank on the back… Six cleaning officers from the Strasbourg Eurometropolis, divided into two teams, started spraying disinfectant on street furniture on Monday. “Tram stations, bus stations, ticket machines, benches, public toilets…, reviews Alain Fontanel, vice-president (LREM) of the Eurometropolis and assistant to the mayor of Strasbourg. We decided to act in a targeted manner in spaces where the public is numerous. "
An initiative presented as a public health measure, in a region of the Great East hit hard by the epidemic of Covid-19. This Thursday evening, the mayor of Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin), Michèle Lutz, announced "as a precautionary measure" disinfection, from Friday morning, of urban furniture but also of Ehpad, pharmacies, hospitals or even bus stations and of tram.
"We are taking targeted action"
It is "out of sanitary necessity" that in Paris, the mayor (LR) of the 7th arrondissement, Rachida Dati, "summoned" the mayor (PS) Anne Hidalgo on Tuesday to use it "like major world cities Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish ... "" Disinfecting the streets could at worst prove to be without effect, "adds the right-wing candidate for the municipal elections.
In Bordeaux, however, the prefecture and the ARS have warned of the risk of spraying products potentially toxic to the environment on the streets. The disinfection project remains in the cans. Would the idea be counterproductive? "Rather than spraying the streets, on the ground, where there is no direct contact with the inhabitants, we are carrying out targeted action," Alain Fontanel defends in Strasbourg. The product used, Panox, is 100% biodegradable. Without chlorine or bleach, it is usually used to disinfect drinking water pipes. "
The elected representative of Strasbourg explains the impressive combination of agents in charge of disinfection by the need to protect them "from a possible droplet effect plus virus" during spraying. The disinfection of street furniture "is an extension of our action for ten days: every evening, we disinfect the interior of all buses and trams," recalls Alain Fontanel.
Each city has its own recipe
In Marcq-en-Barœul, near Lille, the municipality decided to use hot water, sprayed at high pressure on the trash cans and public benches. During "almost a fortnight", 300 baskets must be cleaned in this way, without the addition of disinfectant. A technique "used daily for weeding green spaces", specifies the city.
In the absence of a national obligation to disinfect public space, the municipalities each have their own recipe. Nice projects a product "based on highly diluted bleach", then rinsed with plenty of water. In Toulouse, a reflection is being studied concerning the reasoned use of bleach. Suresnes, Menton and Nîmes use antibacterial products. The Marseille metropolitan area ensures that it uses "a virucidal product that complies with European standards and has a primary biodegradability of at least 80%".
A national reflection in progress
The High Council for Public Health has been instructed by the Minister of Health to carry out a comparative study of disinfection strategies. Pending its response, the health authorities consider that, if street cleaning is to be maintained, “The spraying of bleach or other disinfectant is useless while being dangerous for the environment. "
A recommendation followed by the metropolis of Nancy which announced Monday that it would not resort to street disinfection. In Hérault, the prefect asked the municipalities surrounding the Thau basin, near Montpellier, not "especially" to use "detergent or bleached products" to preserve shellfish farming and fishing.
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- Coronavirus
- Society
- Health
- Covid 19
- Lille
- Strasbourg