By Russ and Tiña De Maris
In this day of fastidiousness and the injection of antibacterial chemicals in nearly every product, there’s a strange movement out there: Dumping holding tanks with your bare hands. A survey at RVtravel.com revealed that nearly one-third of our readers never or seldom use gloves when dumping.
We’ve sometimes wondered why anyone would take on this bacteriological nightmare without protection. From those that don’t, we sometimes hear the excuse, “It’s just too much bother and I can’t see much advantage to it.”
Another reasoning runs, “The stuff stays in the hose, so what’s the big deal?” In a perfect world it’s a good line of reasoning. But since we’re not living in a perfect world, the ‘stuff’ doesn’t always cooperate and stay in the hose. Pinhole leaks can occur and a misaligned bayonet fitting can pop off, unloading an unholy amount of stuff. File that under, “Been there, done that.”
“So you get a little doo-doo on your hands, just wash it off,” is the next comment. Good idea, a thorough washing with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds. Meantime, make sure none of it gets off elsewhere and ends up in your mouth or nose. And hope in the meantime that you have no minor breaks in your skin. If so, the damage may already be done, no matter how much you wash afterwards.
What can happen with a bit of misplaced sewage bacteria? Here’s the short list:
•Gastroenteritis, characterized by cramping stomach pains, diarrhea and vomiting.
•Hepatitis, characterized by inflammation of the liver, and jaundice.
•Infection of skin or eyes.
Not sure of any RVer who’d like to have a bout of any of those manifestations. Washing up even when using gloves is still a good idea, and an outside “shower” unit that many RVs are equipped with is just great for it.
For those that glove up before going into the ring with the sewer hose we can only say, we gotta hand it to you. Good disposable gloves are best. Gloves you reuse over and over can easily get contaminated.
Here are some quality, disposable gloves from Amazon.com that will be good for 100 dumps.
RELATED: An easy trick that will make RV dumping a lot more sanitary.
##rvt745 ##1013
CFS Can’t Fix Stupid people not wearing gloves.
I do not wear gloves when dumping, but do wash my hands extremely well before leaving. Being raised on a farm, we started early and washed our hands before we went in to eat. We didn’t have the rubber gloves that farmers have today and I have never been sick from farming or dumping.
To Leonard; seatbelts – What about school buses? In an accident the kids are the ones who get hurt. The driver has a belt.
Some people don’t wear seatbelts either. You can’t fix stupid.
I find myself again in my own little amusement park. The RVers evidently favorite subject, with no answers, Black Tanks.
If you are a glove user and need a storage space for them – here is what I have. I mounted a “Swiffer” box to the inside of the utility bay compartment door. It has a clear plastic cover and holds about 200 pair! I also mounted a paper towel holder to the door and a plasitc fire extinguisher strap (holder) which holds a container of sanitizer wipes. I also wash my hands after dumping as the gloves, about 90% of time, will be ripped by a nail or ring! Use gloves about 50% of the time but only in the past 8 years or so. I do wear gloves to change engine oil as that may be a carcinogen!
Article is 6 years old. Click bait.
Hi, Gary. We have a lot of new readers who probably haven’t seen it since that was first published. It’s still useful information (not click bait) for anyone interested. If you’ve seen it before, just don’t click on it. Simple as that. –Diane at RVtravel.com
Well said
Thanks, Ron. I wanted to say more but decided against it (don’t want to have to censor myself). 😆 Have a great day! 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
Thanks Diane. I appreciate you always being at least the 1 (respectable) adult in the room.
Thank you, Larry. I try, although sometimes it’s difficult. At 76, I hope I can act like an adult! 😆 Have a great day! 😀 –Diane at RVtravel.com
The arguments about the sewage came from us or the sewage stays in the hose have zero validity. You are laying your hose where many others have. Did they have a spill? Did they have a pinhole leak?
We were up late around the campfire one night and watched an old wreck of an RV pull into the campground and up to the dump station. Two scraggly looking characters jumped out and just pulled open the tank handles letting their raw sewage fly everywhere! They were done and gone in a heartbeat. Next day I watched numerous campers, no gloves, some of them on their knees while hooking up their hose, right where the late night “dump & run” occured. YUK!!!
PS…spray the water spigot at your site with bleach before hooking up. Once saw a woman let her dog urinate all over one. Slob!
When I hook and unhook nothing gets on my hands. I only touch the outside of the hose and cap it when unhooking. Gloves seem a waste. I use wipes afterwards that is kept in the bay just in case. If I needed to stick my fingers in the hose, gloves would make sense.
We wear gloves while dumping. For me, it is not only a question of protection from the sewage (it is after all, our own) but a couple of other things. For one thing, the nitrile gloves give my small and cranky hands a bit of a better grip on so many things.We had to make a jig to keep the extension on the dump valve from rotating when I dump solo, but the gloves give me better grip to attach and detach the ends.
I do use a lot of nitrile gloves, at home and in the camper, for kitchen tasks as well as cleaning, etc. I’ve had skin issues for years, so reducing exposure to cleaners as well as icky stuff is important to me.
Imho printing this article is a Big Mistake. I won’t repeat all the reasons already cited in comments.
This borders on fear mongering.
All the sterilizing and sanitizing is helping depress natural immunity and leading to bacterias that cannot be treated with antibiotics.
Hand washing or cleaning hands with alcohol based sanitizer will suffice.
Gloves like antibiotics are being overused.
While I do wear disposable gloves when dumping our tanks I think there is a lot of merit in the belief that unless the general public is using your RV bathroom (certainly not in our case) any bacteria in the system came from you, your spouse and/or family members, so you have already been exposed to it. I strive and 99.9% of the time achieve a zero drop spillage when dumping because I purchase top quality dump hoses, etc., and maintain and replace them to keep spillage free. I always double check connections and do a test dump with a bit of gray tank waste, checking for any leaks, before dumping the black tank and flushing the hose with both the gray tanks after the black. Ultimately I guess I don’t worry too much about contaminating myself when dumping.
We live in a very fearful and wasteful society. If disposable gloves were expensive this discussion would probably not happen.
My husband gave up wearing gloves a couple of years ago. He said they just transfered germs to everything he touched while emptying out the hose so instead he does it bare handed. When he is done, the bottle of Clorox that he uses to disinfect the poop hose he sprays on his hands to kill whatever is there. Then he goes to the bathroom and also washes his hands. Cheap and very effective.
Gloves are great if one wants to keep their hands dry but as far as protecting from germ transfer they are about as useless as the masks people wore for over a year.
Fear is the driving factor in this discussion, not protection.
In the end we need to think who really is benefiting from all the glove and masks sale. China!
Just follow the money.
Been using gloves since I started RVing in 1978. I have seen many people not using gloves and immediately after handling the hose wipe the sweat off their face with their hands. I just shake my head, no common sense in the younger generations.
It’s far from just newbies or young people. I see people of ALL ages doing it. 😮
Younger generations? Is everything “younger generations”? Disposable gloves were not that common to the general public in earlier generations. Someone emptied the chamber pots without gloves. I don’t recall my dentist ever wearing gloves until the Aids scare. Doctors didn’t wear gloves unless they were poking around in your innards. Ahhh!, maybe the younger generations are trying to build up their immune systems.
I’m not going to agree or disagree about using gloves. But man we create so much trash with all of our disposables. There won’t be any place left to enjoy if we don’t reduce our waste.
A pair of gloves doesn’t take up as much room in the trash as a beer can, yet no one seems concerned about cans in the trash.
You can and should be recycling that beer can.
I don’t put my disposable gloves in the trash… I burn them in my campground campfire ring.
The gloves you recommended have 100 gloves per box. 50 pairs = 50 dumps not 100.
We’ll if you’re economy minded and only use one glove you can get 100 dumps. Lol
Do you wear gloves when you diaper your grandchild? There’s a comfort level comparison. Thanks
We’ll since I haven’t diapered a grandchild in 22 years I have to say no, but when I did I always washed my hands afterward. Lol
Cousin Eddy never wore gloves!
Gloves wouldn’t have helped Cousin Eddy anyway.
We bought our original RV (a 40′ Class A) from a pair of traveling nurses. He never used gloves. His reasoning was all the bad things had originally come from either you or your traveling companion and you already had intimate contact with them. Just wash up after dumping.
I use food service gloves, cheap to buy and do not tear easily. Also in my wet bay is hand soap, a bottle of hand sanitizer, paper towels, and a bottle of Clorox cleanup. Also when out and about I carry a few loose paper towels to open a door and a small bottle of hand sanitizer in my pocket in case I need to use the restroom. It’s amazing to see how many people will leave a stall and not wash their hands and then open the door. I have been doing this for years and far longer than the COVID mess.
On that subject, I drove a semi truck several years, and shortly after I started driving I went into the truck stop restroom and witnessed a scruffy looking driver come out of the #2 stall, walk past the sinks and out the door. A few minutes later after I finished my business I was walking past the food bar and that same driver was going down the food line filling his plate handling the utensils with the same hands he walked past all the sinks with. I never ate from the buffet again, still don’t! UGH! That goes back to his up bringing by people who want to be “friends” to their children instead of parents.
If you have a major spill gloves are not going to protect you.
A little common sense and due diligence as to hook up and equipment condition goes a long way.