In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast you will learn the strategies of how to properly disinfect rental scuba equipment.
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Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.
It’s pretty common that many in the diving industry are just relying on fresh water rinsing of rental equipment after each use instead of disinfecting after each use. That’s not good enough, especially in today’s virus conscious world. Disinfecting after each use is the way to go.
There are two products I highly recommend, Madacide-1 for regulators, snorkels, masks, and BCs – anything that has made contact with the respiratory system. And then Odor Away for all exposure suits.
Madacide-1
First, let’s look at Madacide-1. This is a hospital-grade equipment and surface disinfectant. In fact, it is so good that it is a bactericide, a viruscide, a fungicide, and a mildewcide, There are a couple versions of this – you want the Madacide-1 with the blue label. We have been using this in our Nova Southeastern University Academic Diving Program for over 9 years with amazing results.
Now Madacide‘s directions say to use it at full concentration. BUT then you have to rinse it off with fresh water. If you miss that step, then a milky white formation appears and it is too harsh for contact with mouth, nose and eyes. What we do is make a 9 to 1 solution – that’s one part of Madacide to 9 parts of water. In our case that’s one cup of Madacide to 9 cups of water, that makes for a nice 10 cups in our Rubbermaid 12cup/3L container. By the way that size container is easy to store and is just the right size to dunk items into.
But here’s the trick, we are using that ratio because the students will fresh water rinse first, then they dip the items in the Madacide solution last and then we put it in the dive locker and let it dry with the Madacide solution on it. No rinsing required – there is no aftertaste, smell or caustic issues with the body. And this still kills everything because of the length of time the Madacide solution is on the gear.
Our dive program rents every piece of equipment so we have students disinfect everything. After fresh water rinsing, snorkels go in, masks go in, the whole second stage primary and alternate second stage go in, and the BCD inflator hose. Anything the mouth has been in contact with.
A little bit of Madacide goes a long way. One gallon bottle will cost about $54 and a case of four one gallon bottles is $170. The best part is this will last a long time because your solution works for multiple rinsing sessions. We just put the lid back on the Rubbermaid container and it stays good for several days. Our dive program averages two cups per week, that means one gallon is lasting 8 weeks. That’s with pool sessions four nights a week and both days of every weekend. Your dive center may be less for your rental equipment use, so your Madacide stock will last you a while. Again, I have my Amazon Associates links to both the one gallon and the case of four one gallon of Madacide.
Odor Away
Next up is for your rental wetsuits, you’ll want to use Odor Away. Why is this product the best to use, because it is not just a smell good agent. I reached out to the manufacturers of Odor Away for their detailed description on their product here is what they had to say. “ODOR-A-WAY is state of the art, natural, environmentally friendly product, specifically formulated for diving, surfing and watersports community.
ODOR-A-WAY is a synergetic mixture of special odor destroying bacteria cultures which are kept in a state of suspended animation while contained in gallons or bottles. It has a long shelf life and best if stored in temperatures ranging from 35F to 100 F.
ODOR-A-WAY biologically eliminates the odors commonly found in neoprene wet suits, BCDs and Dive Skins, including urine, mildew and other smells.
Watersports odors are produced by bacteria, found in both salt and fresh water. These bacteria’s consume organic matter like urine, algae, waste matter and pollution. When the bacteria starts consuming these matters, it produces a small amount of foul smelling waste products. When billions and billions of bacteria particles’ consume organic matter in your wet suit or dive skin, there a serious problem.
As soon as ODOR-A-WAY concentrate is mixed with warm water, our odor destroying bacteria, springs into action and starts to find and destroy the organic waste matter they find in neoprene, nylon, Polertec and any other items immersed in the solution. Our ODOR-A-WAY microbes eat and reproduce very aggressively, they produce only odorless carbon dioxide and water. The bad bacteria are out of food and absorbed by ODOR-A-WAY.
ODOR-A-WAY also forms a bio-film that penetrates deep into neoprene, eliminating urine and other contaminants from absorbing under pressure. This deep cleaning is not possible with shampoos and cleaners.
When the ODOR-A-WAY microbes have completed their job, they quietly expire leaving behind a thoroughly clean environment.”
So what we have at our academic diving program is a 100 gallon Rubbermaid trough, many dive centers have this same thing. We label it “WETSUITS ONLY” and we have a fill line marked less than half way, so about 40 gallons. Then we add four cups of Odor Away to the 40 gallons of water. Now this is slightly less than the instructions say, but when following the instructions of 8 ounces per 5 gallons of water, that is super concentrated and requires rinsing afterwards.
Again, by doing our mix we have students thoroughly rinse their wetsuits inside and out. And while the wetsuit is still inside out from them taking it off, they immerse it and swish it around in the Odor Away bath. Then they turn it right side out and hang it up. We then put it in the dive locker and let it dry with the Odor Away solution on it. Again, this kills everything and the locker smells great. You CAN find Odor Away online at Amazon, BUT if you’re a retail dive center I highly recommend you get this product wholesale through Marine Sports Manufacturing. Mike and Miki Reinman are great people and their company Marine Sports Manufacturing has outstanding customer service.
Now A couple areas in our dive program have changed with respect to the coronavirus. and you may want to do the same. First, for BCDs we now add about half a cup of the Madacide 1:9 mixture into the BCD then add 3-5 seconds of fresh water via a hose, inflate then mix around. Remember The BCD has exhaled air from the lungs in it, so this is an added precaution. Also, we are now going to single use manikins for our CPR and oxygen provider courses. The lungs of the manikins are contaminated upon the first exhaled breath into them, and changing the lungs out during the class isn’t feasible especially for two person CPR training. So now we have one dedicated manikin for each person in the course.
Oh, and one more thing in case your students or customers ask, how does chlorine in a pool deal with coronavirus? Well, Per Ireland’s Health Protection Surveillance Center, the following detailed specifics are minimally required to sufficiently inactivate COVID-19 virus in chlorinated drinking water and swimming pools:
“For Swimming Pool chlorination, operating to ‘current recommendations / best practice’ means maintenance of a free chlorine residual of at least 1.0 mg/l (depending on pool type and disinfectant used).” This is basically saying that if a pool is in accordance with our US Department of Health specifications of properly chlorinated pools, it will inactivate the virus.
Folks, please use these disinfecting procedures and tell your students and customers about it. They will appreciate knowing your concern for their health. Also, here’s a tip, notice how I’ve been saying have the student do it? Well this is psychologically very good for your customers. When they play a role in their health and the health of others, there is a buy in, they feel part of a good effort. Don’t think your doing them a favor by disinfecting all the equipment behind the scenes, let the students do it for everyone to see it is getting done properly.
If you would like to see all of these decontamination procedures demonstrated – go to my YouTube channel TheScubaGuru and look for my new Beyond the Standard video on Disinfecting Rental Scuba Gear.
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