 Library and we'll get rolling here in just a moment. And we welcome you all here today for a series of programs that will be partnering with the San Francisco Department of Environment and this is our first of the series for climate action month we are excited to partner. I love partnering with fellow city departments. And today we're going to do a healthy home workshop. So let's jump in for some announcements from the library I want to welcome you I'm an ESA I am one of the librarians at San Francisco Public Library, and I do a lot of virtual programs. We want to welcome you to the unseated land of the Aloni Romutush tribal people and acknowledge the many Romutush tribal groups as the rightful stewards and the lands in which we work and live here in our beautiful Bay Area. The library is committed to uplifting the names of these communities and to providing amazing book lists and resource and all sorts of amazing reading list about our first person culture and land rights, and all of that stuff that librarians love to make lists about. And I'll put a link to all those things in the chat box after we get going. We also want to acknowledge the and condemn the horrendous violence against Asians and Asians Americans in our communities, our state, and our nation. And we are in stand in solidarity with our neighbors and colleagues distressed and hurt by these attacks. We also want to acknowledge that these events are complicated by the entanglement of anti black and anti Asian stereotypes in the reporting of these acts of violence. And we believe that everyone has a stake in dismantling white supremacy and that anti black and anti Asian racism, both uphold white supremacy. So the library has been working. I want to say all city departments have been but the library has been working extra hard on our racial equity commitment. So you can just Google SFPL racial equity and you would find so much but again I will put something in the chat box after we get rolling. The pandemic's not over and all my library family out there serving as we continue to open our doors at more locations Portola just opened up and more scheduled for that. If you have any library material pickup, please wear your mask and check out Samuel Rodriguez's art on Instagram. Tomorrow, we are doing we are hosting the 16th annual poems under the dome 16 years of open poetry, and this is the second year of it being virtual so let's hope not for a third year. It's an amazing event 4pm and you can find that on our website and, like I said, I'll can put some chat links in soon. Our partnership with the department environment is going to include a couple of healthy homes in Cantonese on April 16 climate change in San Francisco, April 17. This is the Earth Day event with Jane Kim and Thayer Walker of Ink Dwell Studio. If you've ever been in the Tindalline, driving down High Street you will see the amazing huge monarch mural. And these two do amazing work together. And so come check out that event. Healthy homes in Spanish on April 23. A panel about edible food recovery, April 24. And it is we are still celebrating our one city one book which is San Francisco public libraries largest literary campaign. If you have not read Chanel Miller's know my name yet that is our selected book of 2021. And it is the story of Chanel Miller's rape on the Stanford campus, and her subsequent dealings with the judicial system, and her survival story, and she's an artist she's amazing. We also get to do amazing programs around the book, our friends of the library sponsors, all sorts of things for us. So on Monday, this Monday coming up. So she he the Simmons Lambda award winner filmmaker director will be coming to show her film. Know the rape documentary. And there'll be a Q&A that follows and so this is a pretty groundbreaking film. It's a decade old now and still groundbreaking so come and check it out. Now we partner with Moad to bring honey, Abduquip in conversation with Ray Lynn Barnes and he just wrote a book he's also a poet and a cultural critic musical critic and has quite a nice library of books that he's written himself. His latest book is a little devil in America, and he will be in Convo, April 28. All right, I am so excited like I said to partner with the San Francisco Department of Environment and today we have Sierra Pringle who will be presenting and Chris on chat who will be helping to answer questions. And I'm turning it over now to Sierra. Hi everybody. Let me share my screen. Sorry. That's good. It's good. Okay, thank you. Hi everybody. My name is Sierra Pringle and I'm here to share with you the safer cleaning and disinfection for a healthy home presentation. I work for the Department of Environment and we're going to talk today about how to identify safer, how to identify cleaning and disinfecting products that are safer for your family's health and just as effective. I will also share simple actions you can do today to safely use whatever cleaning and disinfecting product you buy to improve your indoor air quality and protect the health of your home and your family. So we all deserve to have healthy homes. And we all deserve to have healthy families, especially during this time in COVID-19 from vacuuming to dusting and wiping to sanitizing, cleaning is a big part of our lives. Everywhere we live eventually gets dirty and needs some upkeep and it's unavoidable. Some of us will find it therapeutic while others of us dread it, but it's a part of our lives and frankly it needs to be done to keep a healthy lifestyle. As we all strive to protect our families from COVID-19, we are cleaning and disinfecting more than ever. But many cleaners and disinfectants such as chlorine bleach can cause asthma attacks and people who already have asthma and they can actually cause new asthma cases of asthma and people who didn't have it before. So why does that matter? In 2012, over 80,000 children and adults in San Francisco suffered from asthma and over 32,000 children and adolescents were hospitalized at least once due to asthma. There are many reasons for high asthma rates and using cleaning products that contain bleach and ammonia is one trigger that we can control. And the CDC lists moderate to severe asthma as a risk factor for COVID-19. As part of our Healthy Homes program, we want to let folks know that there are safer effective products to clean and disinfect their homes. We don't want to hurt people, we don't want to hurt ourselves, sorry, in the process of protecting ourselves. If you only remember one thing from our presentations today, I hope will be this, you aren't disinfecting if you don't clean first. First, we're going to talk about cleaners, and then we'll talk about disinfectants. Before the pandemic, I used to think that cleaning and disinfecting were pretty much the same thing, but that's not true. A cleaner is a product that removes dirt, disinfectants don't work on dirty surfaces. Bacteria, fungi and viruses cling to dirt, cling to dirt particles, so the dirt must be removed to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Excuse me, your slide is not advancing. Oh, it's not? It's still on the very first one. Oh, my screen is moving. Maybe I have to change. Oh, resume share, is this working? Yeah, now it's working. Okay, thank you. Okay, so I'll just start on this slide. So, I was saying, I'll just start here, because this is a good point. If you only remember one thing from the presentation, it's to you're not disinfecting if you're not cleaning first. So, first we're going to talk about cleaners, and then we'll talk about disinfectants. So, I was wanting to say that a cleaner is a product that removes dirt and disinfectants don't work on dirty surfaces. Bacteria, fungi and viruses cling to dirt particles, so dirt must be removed to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Just walking into a typical cleaning product aisle, you'll notice that there are hundreds of different products, some with only slightly different sense and colors. We're doubling, when we're doubling our efforts to stay safe and keep our homes and families healthy as we are now, it's important to choose the right cleaning products. But how do you know what products are healthy and safe for your family? Choose cleaning products with these certifications on the label. They're just as effective as other cleaning products, but safer for your family and for you and your family's health. Every ingredient in the products with these labels has been identified and removed by scientists, not just the active ingredient. Cleaning products, although they are effective at removing microorganisms, are not regulated by the US EPA. Oftentimes you'll see words like natural or green to make you think that they're healthier. There is usually no evidence to back up these claims. If you're looking to buy safer cleaning products, look for any of these certifications on the label. The most common certification for household products is the safer choice label on the list. You can also make your own safer cleaning products to keep your home clean and healthy. Since you're cleaning first before disinfecting, why not save money and reduce your family's exposure to enlisted toxic chemicals by making your own cleaners? For example, here's a lemon. Did you know that lemon juices give your home a fresh smell without the man-made chemicals? It also cuts grease. Next we have baking soda, which can serve as a sink cleaner, a deodorizer, and with a brush and some elbow grease, it can remove soap scum. And then we have simple soap and water, which are our best friends for fighting germs. Remember, when you remove the dirt, you remove the germs that stick to the dirt. So in many cases, you don't need bleach or other expensive disinfectants in your home. Whenever you can, buy unscented soap instead of scented soap. The fragrance in many soaps can cause or worsen asthma. Use a microfiber cloth when dusting or mopping or wiping counters. These cloths are reusable in their dust and dirt magnets. They cut down the need for chemicals while cleaning. For example, instead of using a window cleaner, you can simply use water and a microfiber cloth to clean your mirrors and windows. And we've put together some great ideas for you to make your own safer cleaners as part of our Healthy Helms program. You can find them in our website in English, Spanish, and Chinese. And I could leave the links to them in the chat. So we all want to do whatever we can to keep ourselves and our families safer from COVID-19. As a reminder, cleaning is the first step in then disinfecting. If you're not cleaning first, you're not disinfecting. Now we're going to talk about disinfectants. A disinfectant is a chemical that kills things. Because disinfectants are designed to kill things, the EPA requires them to be tested and registered. The process ensures that we know each product is effective and successful at killing the thing that is supposed to. Disinfectants are tested and registered to kill specific viruses and bacteria. EPA then establishes a list of all the disinfectants that are proven to kill each virus. The lists are titled by letters of the alphabet. If you want to kill the COVID-19 virus, then you'll need to look for disinfectants on the EPA's end list. The EPA focuses on disinfecting products and is about effectiveness. But many disinfecting products contain bleach or ammonia and can cause a worsen asthma. Avoid products that contain ammonia, bleach, hypochloride, or strong fragrances. In San Francisco, we want our products to be both effective and safe for our families and for ourselves. So how do we find safer disinfectants? SF Approved is a website that you can go to to find those safer disinfectants. We all know that it can be hard to find a product that you want these days with all the pandemic supply cleaning supply disruptions. So what whatever cleaning or disinfecting product you use, there are some simple actions you can take today to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals and make your home a safer and healthier place for you and your family. So the number one simple thing you can do is to open the windows or doors to increase the ventilation in your home while you're cleaning and disinfecting. You can also turn on a fan. You can cover or remove food from the immediate area where you're cleaning and or disinfecting. When you disinfect, spend your time on frequently touched surfaces such as your telephones, doors and cabinet handles, railings and other devices and services used by more than one person in your house. Don't just spray and wipe disinfectants. Disinfectants need time to work. Clean dirty surfaces first and then spray disinfectant on a sponge or cloth to apply. Let the surface being disinfected remain for 10 minutes and then wipe away the residue. So don't just spray the product directly on the surface. If you can spray the product into the cloth and then apply it when you spray a product. It puts the chemicals into the air in a form that's easy to breathe and it can cause harm to your lungs. So maybe you've had this experience yourself where you're cleaning your tiles in the bathroom with a tile cleaning type product and you start getting choked up from the fumes. Well, that's an example of respiratory irritation which can increase the severity of COVID-19 illness. Spraying cleaning or disinfecting products into the air to kill viruses like COVID-19 does not work. All it does is put toxic chemicals into the air. And whenever you can look for cleaning and disinfecting products that are packaged in a trigger spray bottle and mark fragrance free. Tiny particles of air sauce spray get deep within the lungs and may and many fragrances can cause an asthma attack. Disinfecting and cleaning products disinfecting and cleaning products even safer products can be dangerous if misuse. It's important to understand and follow the product instructions on the label. So and finally never mix different chemical cleaning and disinfecting products, even safer products together. The chemical ingredients don't always play well together and and some, for example, ammonia and bleach can cause poisonous gas called chlorine that can damage your lungs. So our home is a place where we can control what we do to make ourselves healthier. Did you know that even before the COVID-19 pandemic that average person spent 90% of their times indoors? Or that the concentrations of indoor air pollutants can be two to five times higher than the typical outdoor concentrations? We've talked a lot today about how cleaning and disinfecting products can impact your lungs. But there are other indoor air pollutants that can affect your family's respiratory health. This is especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. So let's review some common sources of indoor air pollution. So first we have dust and dust mice that can cause at allergic reactions and asthma. Then we have mold and a damp climate like San Francisco mold can be a big problem. Some molds can even be very dangerous and cause serious health problems and not dealt with right away. And then we have pests like roaches and rodents that are not only annoying, but their droppings and tiny dead body parts become part of the dust that we breathe and can cause serious respiratory problems. So we've already talked a lot today about aerosol cleaning and disinfecting products. But when we use other aerosol products like our hair sprays and oven sprays, these can too create a fine mist of toxic chemicals that we can potentially breathe in and pollute our indoor air pollution. And create indoor air pollution, sorry. The spray chemicals go straight into our lungs when we breathe them. And products that we use to make our home smell nicer often contain combinations of numerous harsh chemicals to produce a nice smell. If you see the word fragrance or if the health warnings like caution on the product label, then the chances are that that product contains chemicals that are not healthy for us. Lastly, without proper ventilation, the fumes from cooking on ourselves are another source of indoor air pollution. So we don't have a lot of time today to go over all the simple actions you can start doing that make a big difference in improving your homes and our air quality and protecting the health of yourself and your family. But you can check out our healthy homes presentation on YouTube and English Spanish or Chinese. Or you can invite me back to share this important message with you another day. So the takeaways in this message is clean first disinfect only touch points not everything. Choose safer disinfectants, follow directions on the product label for dilution time and leave on surfaces to leave on surfaces. Choose cleaners that have the safer choice or green logo on the label. Or green seal. Sorry. Try to avoid clean household cleaning products with bleach, high chloride or ammonia and avoid aerosols and products with fragrance. Now that you've learned about simple actions you can take to keep your home clean and healthy. We need your help share what you've learned with other people in your neighborhood. During the COVID-19 pandemic and after our health is our most valuable asset. Because we all deserve to have healthy homes. And we all deserve to have healthy families. Thank you everyone. This is my contact information if you want to call me about questions. We're going to take we're going to do question and answer and we'll also we'll also do out loud and it will also have question and answer in the chat. There is a brief survey that I hope you guys can take. So we're also post that link in the chat too. Thank you. And I can stop sharing my screen. Thank you. If I could figure out how. Okay, yeah, there you go. Thank you. So we had this let's open it up to questions. Go ahead, Chris. We had one question about scented candles asking if scented candles are bad for indoor air quality. And I mean the answer there is with regard to the sense themselves. We probably know people have all different reactions to sense some people love it and some people just really can't tolerate it. And so we have to be sensitive parting pardon the pun to people's differing reactions to the sense. There are also some chemicals used in perfumes to fix the perfume that aren't are not particularly good for you that can affect have hormonal effects. So, in combination with the smoke itself itself I'd say yeah it's not so great for indoor air quality to have scented candles going. But it's also greatly dependent on individual tastes as well as as far as the sense go. We have a question about what's a healthy and effective way to get rid of ants thanks Preston. The best way to get rid of ants is a combination. Number one, do not, do not go buy a can of pesticide and spray it around your kitchen. You will see a few dead ants on the floor, but it doesn't actually kill the colony yet. Oh it does is release a lot of pesticides into the air of your kitchen. And you can do kill the ants in the kitchen just as effectively with soapy water so soapy water is the key around the house. In the long term they're going to come back, but it does destroy chemical trails they leave on the floor that, you know, they follow each other in those ant trails for the long term. If the if you cannot steal them out of the kitchen or out of the building. So to end up the next best thing is to use various sorts of baits and there are some non toxic or less toxic varieties of baits like boric acid, for example, that are used to really tiny amounts, and the ants take them back to their colony. Actually kills the colony or just weakens the colony and that's that takes about two weeks. So you have to be patient for that question about air filters and air purifiers good idea or waste of money. We were all sort of dealing with that last fall in September when we had that horrible air quality. It's absolutely the air air filters and if you get the right kind. They can definitely improve the indoor air quality and during a forest fire event. It made a big difference for some people. You need to know what you're buying there are there are some recommendations on the Department of Public Health website or the COVID response website SF gov. So, yes, someone just put some. Okay, put some more links in the chat. So anyway, yes, the answer is yes on air filters, air purifiers. Another question is coming up. There's some nice links for upcoming presentations that are in the chat. If anyone wants to unmute and ask that's okay too. Yeah. Now's a good time to let folks know to that they could save this chat with all of these valuable links by going to the chat box and next to where it says file there's three little dots. If you click on those three dots and one of the options will be saved chat. And we'll send a follow up email that contains all sorts of information. What with lots of links. Let's see here. Okay, we have a question about getting rid of rodents. This is a big question folks, but it is really important for indoor health. We recommend starting with prevention very very much or with any pest problem we start with prevention but I think especially with rodents, because it is very possible and feasible to seal them out of your house. If you get rid of the passageways the holes and cracks that they've found to get into the building. And so that is the number one thing to do along with sanitation. Of course, if we have open compost bins or, you know, a even a fruit tree with a lot of fruit on the ground those things can attract rodents. There are some resources on our website on how to how to pass. Sorry, how to prevent pests as a whole set of guidelines on that as a matter of fact, tell you what kind of screen to use and what kind of locations to look for and so forth. So we would, we'd start out with that. I think that for residents using traps is the next option. There's sort of a trick to using traps. I do not recommend baits for residents especially really only for very extreme public health situations and then you call the professional I would say, let's see. We have a question, can you let us know some simple DIY cleaning solutions for the home. Yes, and actually if you look in the chat scroll up the chat we provided a link to the fact sheets that Sierra mentioned. And that gives you some some little recipes for those. Thanks, Sierra for posting that. Oh, here's a great one. What's a safe and effective way to remove and prevent mold in the shower grout. So this is someplace where I think Sierra as an example was a really good one. You've ever used tile cleaner in the shower you've probably gotten choked up. I mean this is something that is really bad for people with sensitive lungs. So most of the products you find for tile cleaners are based on bleach chlorine bleach. But there are some that are out there and some general purpose cleaners that are based on peroxide and peroxide does work on grout. It is it takes scrubbing like actually the bleach takes some scrubbing as well. But if you can look for peroxide based products. That is a whole lot safer for your lungs than the bleach based products. Let's see, scrolling up the chat. You can you can blurred out a question if you have one you unmute yourself and ask a question if you don't want to enter it in the chat. That's just fine. Here's some Dory Mercado had a question. She said that this person says just curious what's your professional credentials want to get she they want to give us credit in her school report. Sorry, Dory. Thank you. Sorry. So my background is I have a PhD in entomology and bugs so test management is one of my things. And then I lead our green purchasing program at the Department of the environment as well. And I'm the toxics residential associate on at the Department of the environment, and I graduated from college in 2019. I'm 2018 and environmental health. So that's what I that's what I thank you. This is Dory. Yeah. Like I said, I want to give you credit in my discussion board. I'm a DMP student at USF and my DMP project is towards environmental health so maybe I can hook up with either one of you and see how I can, you know, maybe interview you and and give you some credit in my DMP project as well. So thank you. Another question. This is another good question. What do you do to clean a toilet bowl. And so we, we do work with the city custodians a lot on green cleaning programs and products. With toilet bowls, I think I would be correct to say that you can use a general purpose cleaner, most of the time one of the safer cleaners that Sierra was talking about every once in a while a deep cleaning is needed. And I know that there are safer choice toilet bowl cleaners out there as well so you don't, there are specialized toilet bowl cleaners under the safer choice program. For the really, really bad stuff that stains and so forth, you may need an acid based prolet bowl cleaner. They usually have sort of citric or phosphorous acid in them, and that it's a little more hazardous if you get it in your eyes so that's something not to use every day. That's only when you absolutely have to. Let's see, from YouTube is food grade diatomaceous powder safe for pest control. It might be safe, but it's not effective. You need a, there are different kinds of diatomaceous earth out there, and you need to, you need to buy the kind that is a registered pesticide. Some kinds of diatomaceous earth that are have a different shapes and so they don't affect the insects as much as the, the insecticide style diatomaceous earth which has little spikes on it, they're, they're fossilized plankton, and they, they break the skin of the insect and the insect dies from dehydration way it works so I would say no food grade diatomaceous powder if it's not labeled as a pesticide to kill some of these, then you shouldn't, shouldn't try that. I hope that answered your question, Anissa, or from YouTube, I guess it was. Let's see ants inspires are common to see inside the home but is silverfish a common insect to see as well. Yes, silverfish are really common in homes. In the past, in terms of being visible or causing damage they, they can cause some long term damage on certain things, for example, silverfish and some related insects really like certain kinds of starchy materials, like you might find in an old book, book glue or in wallpaper paste. And they, in the long term they might cause a little bit of damage, but they tend to hide better than the others and they are not a public health risk in any way. Either. Let's see, well, that's a great questions here. A question from Reginald, what's the best way to check for mold inside a home aside from visual inspection are all molds visible. So we actually on this one I want to defer to our Department of Public Health. They have some information on talk what they call toxic smoke toxic mold, and how to detect it I believe that there are some detection kits that are available in hardware stores, I'm not sure about that so I, I'm going to punt on that one and say, ask you to check the public health mold resources and well maybe if I can find it before this is over we can put in a link in the chat. I have a question, how do you get rid of fruit flies and the answer is you have to get rid of their food. And it's not just fruit. They can, they're very tiny little insects and they can, if you just have straight crumbs here and there. They sit for a few days. That can be food for them. So, usually they'll come up if you haven't watched some bins recycling bins for example or compost bins frequently enough only takes a few days for them to lay eggs and start hatching out so it is important to do regular sanitation. There's nothing else really. There's no spray or any magic bullet for fruit flies other than cleaning things up. So, how to better clean vegetables and fruits. So, there are Wendy I think maybe referring to some of those specialized vegetable and fruit washes that are out there. My understanding a safe, you know, a non toxic soap Castile soap is just as effective as those rather expensive vegetable and fruit washes. And if you're washing it well the soap is not going to be on the surface in any care in any case so this is kind of a personal opinion but I don't, I don't recommend the spending the money on the specialized fruit washes. Oh, great. We have a link for the public the mold remediation program that has been posted in the chat. So have a look at that. Okay. Those of dead batteries. Okay, this is a little bit little bit off topic but you put in a. Okay, Maggie, stop me if I get it wrong, because I'm not living in San Francisco right now, but you put in a plastic bag, the black bag on top of your trash bin, and it's picked up. I will not go. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead and go in the black bin, and you can go green and drop off your batteries. They don't take back car batteries guys, just regular batteries, like the ones that they're still but they're still doing the bin top is that correct Sierra. They're doing the bin top. They're still doing the bin top. So, yeah. Thank you. Any other questions here. And thank you Maggie posted the link for recycle where.org this is the general solution for any questions about recycling where to recycle different sorts of things. As every cycles.org. Oh boy. How do you dispose of car gas that's in containers. I'm turning that over to you Maggie and Sierra. Yeah, I would turn that over to Maggie. I have a question like that. I'm typing in the chat. Oh, you are okay. Yeah, so that is it. That's a hazardous material. You can't just put it in the trash, obviously. Maggie's going to give you a detailed answer in the chat. She's much more well acquainted with the waste issues. Let's see. The recording of this workshop be available on YouTube. I think the answer is yes. Correct. Yeah, we go. Correct. We streamed on our on the public library YouTube channel. As will the Spanish and Cantonese versions. Thank you. We do have some more links I think we're going to be posting right Sierra before we close up. We do have more links. Oh, here we go. Make Maggie Johnson has answered your question about the gas. I would dispose of gasoline disposal. I was thinking. There is a link to the healthy homes presentation about indoor air pollution. And that is also on YouTube and English Spanish and Chinese and I could put the links for all the for that presentation. It's it's different from this presentation. It has more about indoor air pollution in it. And I could put the link to that presentation in the chat here if anybody wants to look at that at another time. Is a question I get tiny flies in my house plants. Any way to deal with that. And the answer is it depends on what kind of tiny flies they are. But the most common tiny flies would be fungus gnats they live on fungus in the soil and the solution to that. And the solution is to water less water let it let the soil dry between waterings. And you might have noticed fungus on the surface of plants. I'm sorry in the surface of the soils. Sometimes that's what they like to eat. So, if you can adjust your waterings that will sometimes solve it for you. There's no real chemical solution that I know after that one that you would want to use. Doing great questions today. Amazing everyone is awake Saturday morning ready to ask questions. What's the difference. You have a question what's the difference between the safer choice certification and design for the environment. So, safer choice is what you look for when you're looking for cleaning products if you're a consumer going into a grocery store. You're looking for something safer in regular cleaning products not disinfectants. You look for the safer choice logo you can also look up on their website and I think we might have some links for that we can post. So, there are a lot of different kinds of products covered by safer choice it's run by the US EPA. It's a trusted program. Design for environment is run also by the US EPA and that actually what they used to call safer choice. And right now you will not see them use that term except for certain disinfectants. So, if when you look on our website at the lists of safer disinfectants, you'll see some of them marked as being designed for the environment disinfectants. That's the closest thing we have to a certification or you know an eco label showing that these are safer products for disinfectants we don't have you won't find other eco labels on disinfectants it's hard to know what's green and what's not. So that's why we made the website to help you with that. And yes, so design for the environment is what we used to call safer choice. Now it's just used for disinfectants and there are just a few of them actually certified for design for the environment. Excuse me. Oh my goodness. Okay, we got lots of great questions here. All right, safe products for weeds on public concrete stairs between two streets. So, if it's public area. Well, first of all, we as members of the public should never be using any pesticides on public property. Round upon and Yeah, but if it's something that you're taking on for maintenance. The first choice of course is to do it mechanically get a screwdriver and get them from between the wheat from between the slabs of concrete. That's a lot of work. I used to do that when I was a kid. But our public employees use for these spaces. If they use anything. They would use something that is kind of similar to a dilute vinegar or to a certain kind of soap that makes the plant that green parts of the plant die. And it's not a something that goes into the plant it's not anything carcinogenic doesn't cause cancer. It's not like round up. Or some of these more powerful or besides so if they do control with chemicals they usually use those kinds of non toxic products. They occasionally also will do weed flaming, maybe not on public stairs but in other sort of concrete areas. There are devices that they walk very quickly across the area with this flame and it causes the plants to wilt back. So and that's sometimes used in the parks. Excuse me. Sorry. How do you permanently have a question. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead. Oh. No, it's not about carpet bugs. I have little, I have little tiny moths. They wouldn't be more than they're like between an eighth of an inch and a quarter of an inch, and they're dark brown. And at first I thought they were coming from the carpet, but then I thought they were coming from plants and now they're just, I mean they're just a few here and there and I just, I squished them with my fingers, but I don't know what they are I can't get rid of them. I don't want to use anything on them. What are they just work. You said they're for that size. Oh no. You know what I would suggest there's a bunch of resources for this sort of thing with the University of California that help you identify these sort of mystery bugs that show up in your house. I don't know what you've described it makes me want to ask how close it is to your kitchen, because there are some dark beetles that maybe about that size that would feed on flour and grains. You know, they started in my, they started in my bedroom. Oh really okay. Yeah, where I have plants, I have plants, where you have plants, and I have a carpet. It's really impossible to tell without seeing them. If it started with the plants are you might look to see if it's something that was feeding on the plants because they're, you know, that's quite possible they just strayed from their plants. Well when I water, when I water a plant they come from the soil. So, I don't know. All right. Well, yeah. Maybe. Sorry. I water the plants with soapy water, and I think I'm killing them but then they pop up again. Okay, we can move on. That's all right. Thank you. I would check out the University of California statewide. Well, I'll post the link I'll post the link statewide integrated pest management program they have a whole bunch of resources to identify. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Thanks a lot. Someone asked, is hydrogen peroxide generally the best choice for disinfecting a disinfectant a registered disinfectant product that has hydrogen peroxide as the main ingredient. They can be very effective just as effective as any of the traditional disinfectants actually they use them in hospitals. They are quite effective. But if by hydrogen peroxide you mean the kind you buy in the drug store. You can't recommend that as a disinfectant it certainly will kill germs, but it hasn't been tested in these situations as a cleaning product. And there are other ingredients that they use in the cleaning product versions that make it more effective and make it last longer. So, you mean drug store of peroxide. I wouldn't rely on that as a disinfectant I would buy always look for a registered disinfectant in the store. Let's see. Being outside which is the best hand I think it means hand disinfectant hand sanitizer alcohol hydrogen peroxide. So, again, you, you should buy products that are intended to be hand sanitizers that wouldn't just pour alcohol on your hand or pour peroxide on your hand. And of those, you know the alcohol ones, what I would look for with ethyl ethyl or isopropyl alcohol. Those are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. They are low toxicity. And they work just fine. I don't think I would stray from the alcohol products personally. Oh, I see the follow up for that question that comes in an opaque container. Yes, that's because I think you were you were Christina you were talking about drug store hydrogen peroxide probably. And that I wouldn't recommend that. So, let's see, Sierra, am I missing any here? Yeah, the last one I see is how do you permanently, how do you permanently get rid of carpet bugs? Are there better cleaning products? Maybe they would say safer cleaning products for carpet. Maybe there are safer choice carpet cleaning products as well. So, if you're looking for the safest products, I would look for safer choice again. You can look on their website and I think we distributed that link. For carpet bugs and that's probably you mean carpet beetles, which are some very tiny sort of round model looking beetles. They are called domestics and they feed on various kinds of organic matter in or under the carpet. And there are some, first of all, a lot of vacuuming and cleaning is important for that. There are also some powders that you can use that are non toxic sort of a silica gel or diatomaceous earth type powder. If it's a really bad infestation and you have for example a rug that you can get where you can get this underneath the rug. That could be helpful also, but really it's a lot about vacuuming very frequently. And often they pop up when a carpet has gotten wet also. Anyone who's been in a flood knows this. They will get a lot more of the beetles popping up from different sorts of cloth. So, make sure it's all dried out. Let's see what else do we have. Not seeing any new questions. If anyone on the line would like to just blur it out a question you're welcome to. We're coming down to the last few minutes it looks like. Oh yeah, and Sierra has just posted the safer choice certified link in the chat so you can find certified products ahead of time. And that's a good way to go. It's important to notice that for whatever reason there are some safer choice certified products that don't have the safer choice logo on it. I don't know why this is. So it is a good idea to look at the website if you are a better planner than I am about your shopping. Look at the website first. You have another question about ants so I did, I did cover ants earlier, but the summary was don't don't buy sprays to use indoors use soapy water to wipe them up indoors. And if you need further control. We don't have any more questions from YouTube either but lots of thank yous. Chris you're muted. If you are speaking. How's that. There we go. We're back. We're back. I think we have answered. I'm coming back on high. We've answered lots of questions today, and very amazing thank you for answering all of the questions that came through I love when presenters do that. And audience thank you for having all those robust questions and YouTube we thank you as well. As we mentioned a couple times this event will be on the San Francisco public libraries YouTube for future viewing. And we do have a nice series with the SF department of environment for the month of April which is climate action month. So, please come back. Sierra, Chris, Maggie SF Department of environment we thank you all for being here today. And let's go enjoy this beautiful Sunday we have outside Saturday, Saturday. What day is it. Thank you. All right friends. Thank you. Thank you. Don't forget. Yeah, you can save the chat by clicking on the three dots and will. Oh, did you put your survey in. I think you guys all the way at the top but I can scroll and get it and put it at the, put it at the end. Okay, and we can also we'll send a follow up email to folks that lists, lots of links and lots of ways to get to us, but definitely take our survey that's what helps us form what programs we do and how we best serve our community. Thank you friends. Thank you. Everyone. Thank you. Bye bye.