Recommendations for disinfecting your equipment

During the current COVID-19 crisis, many of you have sent us questions on how to disinfect your equipment. Here are the basics that you need to know.

To clean PETZL PPE or other equipment, please follow the instructions provided in the technical notice for each product. 

As a reminder, chemical cleaners damage plastics and textiles, breaking down the compounds and the fibers. The only cleaning products tested and recommended are soap and water. 

In the specific case of COVID-19, hospital disinfection methods involve high temperatures (>150°C) or low temperatures (<100°C) and using bleach. We cannot apply these protocols to Petzl PPE or other equipment. 

To date, no health authority has announced an official, reliable disinfection protocol using low temperatures (<100°C) and without bleach.

In this context, we recommend the following two protocols and you are free to choose which one best suits your needs:

• protocol 1: quarantine the product for 72 hours
• or protocol 2: immerse the product in hot (65° C) water for at least 30 minutes, then wash it with soap and water. To dry your equipment, please follow the instructions provided in the technical notice. This protocol will highly reduce the risk of contamination, but of course is not 100% guaranteed. You can also request further information from your local health authorities concerning low temperature disinfection protocols.