What is the Difference Between Sanitation and Sterilization

The key difference between sanitation and sterilization is that sanitation reduces microorganisms to a safer level while sterilization completely destroys and eliminates all forms of microorganisms.

Surfaces are often contaminated with microorganisms. Cleaning helps us to stay hygienic and to control the spread of infections. Sanitation and sterilization are two techniques of inactivating and controlling the spread of microorganisms in the environment. Sanitation reduces the pathogen content on surfaces through methods such as cleaning, washing, and removing dirt. Sterilization kills or destroys all microbes on surfaces.

CONTENTS

1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is Sanitation 
3. What is Sterilization
4. Similarities – Sanitation and Sterilization
5. Sanitation vs Sterilization in Tabular Form
6. Summary – Sanitation vs Sterilization

What is Sanitation?

Sanitation refers to having access to facilities to dispose of human wastes safely while maintaining hygienic conditions. The main focus of a sanitation system is to protect human health by providing and maintaining a clean environment. This prevents the transmission of diseases such as diarrhea through fecal matter. Ascariasis, cholera, hepatitis, schistosomiasis, polio, and trachoma are a few diseases that transmit through the fecal-oral route due to poor sanitation.

Sanitation includes four technical and non-technical systems. They are excreta management systems, wastewater management systems, solid waste management systems, and drainage systems of rainwater. Sanitation mainly includes personal sanitation and public hygiene. Personal sanitation includes cleaning household wastes, toilet wastes, and managing household garbage. Public sanitation includes the collection of garbage, transferring them, and treatment procedures in municipal solid waste management. The whole purpose of sanitation is to provide a healthy living environment while protecting natural resources such as soil, groundwater, and surface water, and provide safety for people when urinating and defecating.

What is Sterilization?

Sterilization is the process of completely eliminating or destroying all forms of microorganisms. Microorganisms include bacteria, fungi, unicellular eukaryotes, spores, and other biological agents. There are various sterilization techniques, including heat, chemical sterilization, radiation sterilization, sterile filtration, and preservation of sterility. Sterilization through heat includes steaming, drying, flaming, incineration, tyndallization, and glass bead sterilization. Heat sterilization denatures and destroys microbes. Steaming uses saturated steam under pressure. Drying uses hot air that is free from water vapor at high temperatures. Flaming is carried out on instruments in laboratories. It includes the exposure of a flame to instruments. Incineration is a waste treatment process where the combustion of organic substances in waste materials takes place. Tyndallization is the boiling of water at atmospheric pressure, cooling, and incubating, and the process repeats several times. Glass bead sterilization works by heating glass beads up to 250 °C. It is also mainly used for laboratory instruments.

Chemical sterilization includes the usage of ethylene oxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, glutaraldehyde and formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, and peracetic acid. Radiation sterilization includes electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays. There are non-ionizing and ionizing radiation types. Sterile filtration is used on fluids that are damaged by heat, chemical sterilization, and irradiation. Microfiltration using membrane filters is used in this technique. Preservation of sterility includes sealing and packaging.

What are the Similarities Between Sanitation and Sterilization?

• Sanitation and sterilization are techniques of cleaning.
• Both help to maintain a clean environment.
• Both affect the control of microbial growth.
• Sanitation and sterilization use chemical agents.
• Both attack various components of microbial cells.
• Moreover, they stop reproduction and inactivate microbes.

What is the Difference Between Sanitation and Sterilization?

Sanitation reduces microorganisms, while sterilization completely destroys and eliminates all forms of microorganisms. Thus, this is the key difference between sanitation and sterilization. Sanitation is carried out by chemicals such as sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, organic chlorine, sodium hypochlorite, or calcium hypochlorite. Sterilization techniques involve heat, chemical sterilization, radiation sterilization, sterile filtration, and preservation of sterility. This is another difference between sanitation and sterilization. Moreover, viruses and spores are not affected by sanitation while they are killed by sterilization.

The below infographic presents the differences between sanitation and sterilization in tabular form for side-by-side comparison.

Summary – Sanitation vs Sterilization

Sanitation reduces the microorganism number on surfaces, while sterilization completely destroys and eliminates all forms of microorganisms from objects. Sanitation is carried out through chemicals such as sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, organic chlorine, sodium hypochlorite, or calcium hypochlorite. Sterilization, on the other hand, involves various techniques of sterilization, including heat, chemical sterilization, radiation sterilization, sterile filtration, and preservation of sterility. So, this summarizes the difference between sanitation and sterilization.

Reference:

1. “Sanitation & Hygiene Home.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
2. “Sterilization and Disinfection.” An Overview | ScienceDirect Topics.

Image Courtesy:

1. “A typical example of the sanitation service chain with variation for urban and rural areas” By GRID-Arendal (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) via Flickr
2. “Sterilization by Freezing and Drying Unit – Temperature Monitor” By Afsal Zain – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia