Civilizations have recognized copper’s antimicrobial properties for centuries. It’s time to bring the material back.
These ancient civilizations were referring to COPPER, a material that cultures across the globe have recognized as vital to our health for more than 5,000 years. When INFLUENZAS, bacteria like E. coli, superbugs like MRSA, or even coronaviruses land on most hard surfaces, they can live for up to four to five days. But when they land on copper, and COPPER ALLOYS LIKE BRASS, they begin to die within minutes and are undetectable within hours. “We’ve seen viruses just BLOW APART.” says Bill Keevil, professor of environmental healthcare at the University of Southampton. “They land on copper and it just degrades them.”
No wonder that in India, people have been drinking out of copper cups for millennia. Even here in the United States, A COPPER LINE BRINGS IN YOUR DRINKING WATER. Copper is a natural, passive, antimicrobial material. It can self-sterilize its surface without the need for electricity or BLEACH.
Copper BOOMED during the Industrial Revolution as a material for objects, FIXTURES, and buildings. Copper is still widely used in POWER NETWORKS—the copper market is, in fact, growing because the material is such an effective CONDUCTOR. But the material has been PUSHED OUT OF many building applications by a wave of new materials from the 20th century. Plastics, TEMPERED GLASS, aluminum, and STAINLESS STEEL are the materials of modernity—used for everything from architecture to Apple products. Brass DOOR KNOBS and HANDRAILS WENT OUT OF STYLE as architects and designers opted for SLEEKER-LOOKING (and often cheaper) materials.
Now Keevil believes it’s time to bring copper back in public spaces, and hospitals in particular. In the face of an unavoidable future full of global pandemics, we should be using copper in healthcare, PUBLIC TRANSIT, and even our homes. And while it’s too late to stop COVID-19, it’s not too early to think about our next pandemic.
The benefits of copper, quantified
We should have seen it coming, and in reality, someone did.
In 1983, medical researcher Phyllis J. Kuhn wrote the first critique of the disappearance of copper she’d noticed in hospitals. During a training exercise on hygiene at Hamot Medical center in Pittsburgh, students SWABBED various surfaces around the hospital, including toilets bowls and door knobs. She noticed the toilets were clean of microbes, while some of the fixtures were particularly dirty and grew dangerous bacteria when allowed to multiply on AGAR PLATES.
“Sleek and shining stainless steel doorknobs and PUSH PLATES look REASSURINGLY clean on a hospital door. By contrast, doorknobs and push plates of TARNISHED BRASS look dirty and CONTAMINATING,” she wrote at the time. “But even when tarnished, brass—an alloy typically of 67% copper and 33% zinc—[kills bacteria], while stainless steel—about 88% iron and 12% chromium—does little to IMPEDE bacterial growth.”
Ultimately, she wrapped her paper up with a simple enough conclusion for the entire healthcare system to follow. “If your hospital is being renovated, try to retain OLD BRASS HARDWARE or have it REPEATED; if you have STAINLESS STEEL HARDWARE, make certain that it is disinfected daily, especially in critical-care areas.”
Decades later, and ADMITTEDLY with funding from the Copper Development Association (a copper industry trade group), Keevil has pushed Kuhn’s research further. Working in his lab with some of the most feared pathogens in the world, he has demonstrated that not only does copper kill bacteria efficiently; it also kills viruses. (In 2015, he even demonstrated this phenomenon with a precursor to COVID-19, coronavirus 229E)..”
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