GROUND RULES FOR SAFER CLEANING
It’s so commonplace that it’s easily overlooked. James White, MD of Denis Rawlins Ltd, runs his slide rule over the risk from slippery floors, as well as falls from height when cleaning.
Consider the gap between our common knowledge of the ground rules for healthy and safe facilities, and the stubborn toll of avoidable ‘accidents’ in our buildings. Into this yawning gap fall slips and trips, the most common workplace hazards. They account for a third of all serious injuries at work, and caused just shy of 118,000 non-fatal injuries in 2015/2016.
These are Health & Safety Executive stats, and don’t include visitors in public buildings. They too ‘generate costly civil claims’ as the HSE warns, along with all other costs. These range from pain, lost income and quality of life, to absence from work, and the wider costs to society in medical treatment and benefit payments.
The toll is shocking, but perhaps it’s not surprising that our blind spot in risk aversion should be something as banal as the floors under our feet. Sometimes when auditing matting for a prospective client, it turns out that an ‘incident’ prompted the call. Heavily worn entrance matting can become a hazard. Like other flooring, if it’s torn, lifting or less than seamless with adjacent floors, it will trip the unwary or unlucky.
Nor does it take a thunderstorm to expose the inadequacy of barrier matting, but it is that time of year. Matting that fails to absorb sufficient moisture or cover a large enough area allows more water to be tracked onto interior flooring, along with wet leaves, slush, oil and the rest.
Don’t wait for a mishap before you check your building’s barriers against the elements. Entrance matting is a low-cost yet highly effective first line of defence. In warehouses and industrial buildings, forklift matting will sharply reduce the dirt and wet tracked inside by these trucks.
With any entrance matting, some moisture and contaminants will
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inevitably get through to interior floors. The next ground rules are interlinked: clean them well and often enough, and make sure your cleaning practice doesn’t make matters worse.
Wet mopping is the most common culprit. As the HSE notes, even ‘a well-wrung mop will leave a thin film of water sufficient to create a slip risk on a smooth floor’. A dry mop or squeegee reduces drying time, but still poses a risk. Using the wrong cleaning agent, or not diluting it correctly, can also create slip hazards. So training and supervision are just as important as the cleaning method.
Cleaning needs to remove contamination and greasy deposits, leaving a dry surface. Effective and easy-to-use systems are available that wet-suction away the soiled cleaning solution. By only spreading or spraying clean solution, this approach also achieves a thorough and more hygienic result.
The same dispense and vac system provides a rapid response to spills and breakages – another essential feature of a cleaning regime that controls slip risk.
Cleaning methods can increase danger, not least for cleaning staff
themselves, in other ways. The consequences for a visitor who slips on an escalator can be very serious. For operatives, using cleaning equipment on an escalator – whether it’s specialist kit or an adaptation of a general floor cleaning machine – also raises the stakes. Which is partly why escalators tend not to be cleaned as frequently and thoroughly as surrounding floors.
Again, a low-cost method, using an engineered sponge pad that slots into the comb plate, is a safer alternative. As oncoming treads emerge cleaner and safer under foot, users also benefit.
Cleaning at height poses the highest risk. Yet cleaning managers in many cases don’t need to put their own staff or specialist contractors in harm’s way. Ultra-light carbon fibre poles and tools can now vacuum up to 11m from ground level (and 15m outdoors). With an in-built hi-res video monitor there’s no loss of quality control, or need for ladders or access platforms.
As cleaning managers, consultants and operatives, we all need to keep our feet firmly on the ground, and common-sense precautions in mind.
www.rawlins.co.uk twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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