Which do you clean first, bong or toilet?
A customer, Ralph, brought in a bong to see how Mile HIGH Cleaned his bong and I found a fibrous mass growing inside the piece. Ralph said he tried cleaning it a few times but now just added more water as needed to bubble. This had been going on for a few months. As a newbie to cannabis, he confessed he had hit it it several times that day.
After a few minutes I handed back the clean piece and he was stunned. Ralph said he hated cleaning because ISO and salt did not always work and made him feel woozy. In the past it always taken a lot time and shaking. This is a common complaint; we hate current cleaning techniques so much we are willing to put up with a dirty piece. Maybe we are doing it wrong?
Cleaners and tools make any job easier, the toilet for example. Is cleaning a toilet easier than cleaning a bong? Which are you more likely to clean? Which is more important?
Let’s compare. They both hold water, gurgle and can smell like an outhouse. Both get rinsed in between cleanings but here things begin to deviate.
The toilet removes smelly waste but does not smell.
The clean bong conveys a tasty, healing substance into our bodies.
It usually has an overwhelmingly bad odor.
The Porcelain Throne gets cleaned at the first hint of odor.
The Bong stinks progressively worse every minute it goes uncleaned.
If a toilet had black chunks and REEKED like an outhouse, I would clean it before letting my butt touch it. Wrapping my lips round the same odor coming from my glass just turns my stomach. Granted, I am biased toward clean glass bongs, but who wouldn’t be?
Microorganisms grow in warm, wet environments. Bacteria colonies double in size in as little as 20 minutes with food and light. The interior of a bong is PERFECT!
The Lungs are the easiest point of entry into the body. This is how covid and most illnesses invade. You are more likely to get an airborne or respiratory attack, infection or reaction. It is all about exposure and how much and what type of airborne contaminants you breathe. Airborne contaminants are barely ‘tolerable’, and can quickly escalate to ‘intolerable’, harmful or toxic.
The ‘Swamp Water’ moist air inhaled through a dirty piece carries all manner of microbes, bacteria, fungus and even mold. Inhaling small amounts happens all the time and is ‘tolerable’. Even Filtered water contains about 10,000 bacteria per cup (not much and is tolerable). Within an hour that could be 80,000 Bacteria and suddenly, inside a dirty bong it starts to stink. Still tolerable but is staining your systems and ruining the flavor. Overnight it becomes billions setting up condos in the resin on the inside of your piece.
The next morning you rinse it but a rinsed bong still has millions of bacteria harboring in the moist resin so it stinks even faster. In about 3 hours that bong could be back to a BILLION. A deep hit from a dirty piece creates moist, germ-laden air which is carried DEEP into your lungs. Meantime, droplets splatter on your lips. That persistent cough may be your body trying to rid itself of the germ laden mucus, which is the first line of defense for the lungs. If you overwhelm the defenses your body will react and that cough may only be the start.
Ralph told me that he thought germs could not grow in Bong water. Stagnant water with chunks of edible plant matter is heaven to most microorganisms.
Ralph also thought that the resin forms a coating, like a cast iron skillet, keeping further resin from forming on the glass.
This is a most absurd notion. A ‘seasoned’ cast iron skillet does not stink because it is scrubbed with a stiff brush and lots of hot water, forming a carbon layer that is non-stick. The resin layer inside the bong already smells BAD. Adding more stink cannot stop or reduce stink. It all still stinks the same; before, during and after toking. The only way to reduce the odor is to clean the piece. Same way with the toilet. Clean it because it is far too late for rinsing or flushing.
So…
Which do you clean, Bong or Toilet?
Recent survey said people clean the toilet more often than the bong even though the bong smells much worse than the toilet. 100% hated the smell of the bong and found it to stink more than the worst toilet but would still clean the entire bathroom rather than clean the bong once. When done they would go hit that dirty piece…repeatedly.
The Toilet takes about 2-3 minutes using $.20 cents worth of cleaner
The Bottle of Toilet Cleaner is actually a specialized tool to squirt under the rim. There are 20-30 cleanings per bottle which is less than most cleaners. The big, long handled brush is specially made to scrub the toilet and there are 30 varieties. These items have no other use and were made specifically to make cleaning a toilet fast and easy. You invested in them because they are the right tools for the job. Tools make any job easier.
Ralph used a wire coat hanger, paper towels and Q-tips to try and get the resin. These ragtag, makeshift tools used by many add to the mountains of trash already created.
Bong Cleaners rely upon shaking a toxic liquid with salt thrown in to act as some sort of scrubbing agent. To make a tiny salt crystal ‘scour’ the glass takes an extreme amount of shaking as a salt crystal has very little mass. A lot of salt slammed as hard as possible will never equal a few seconds with a brush and the right cleaner.
Cleaning a bong by shaking toxic chemicals takes at least 20 minutes but could take all day depending upon several factors such as how long it has been since the last cleaning or if the resin has dried out. Some pieces never come completely clean by this method.
It cost about $.50 cents worth of ISO (isopropyl alcohol). Plus a bag for the ash-catcher, bowl and stem as well as gloves, eye protection, and Respirator according to the MSDS, EPA, OSHA and the Department of Health and the International Agency for Research on CANCER.
Oh, and if you want to save the planet, don’t forget to pour it back in the bottle to be used next time. Turns out virtually no one does this! Remember, ISO is made from Fossil Fuels which is illegal to release or dump in the sewer in any amount due to environmental damage. In addition, ISO is a VOC and contributes to Ground Level Ozone which kills a million people every year worldwide. Granted, these are mostly the elderly, the very young and the sick or infirm. As a matter of fact, the people that are most affected by the toxic chemicals used to clean paraphernalia PROBABLY DO NOT CONSUME CANNABIS. They are innocent bystanders that just happen to breathe the air we are slowly polluting in the name of a tasty hit. Again, maybe we are doing it wrong.
Shaking Toxic solvents are not how we clean anything; we MAKE tools and a detergent for the job! Like the foaming Brush at the car wash, Tooth brush and paste, to several types of tools, brushes and dish detergent used to clean everything dish, every day.
Get the tools to clean glass paired with the RIGHT CLEANER in the DELUXE Cleaning Kit for Bongs
20% off code TURNBLACK
Free shipping on Deluxe Cleaning Kit
Lifetime warranty on tools
50 cleanings per bottle (10 times ISO)
PIPE cleaning kit if you just toke pipe or vape.
