FLOOR SAFETY GIVING DIRT THE BOOT
James White, Managing Director of Denis Rawlins, explains how a fresh approach to floor cleaning can yield more hygienic results, for longer.
WHAT IS A HIGH-RISK FLOOR? COVID-19 has raised the demand for more anti-viral
and anti-bacterial cleaning solutions for floors. This is especially relevant in the winter months, when other contagion risk is higher, with seasonal illnesses like the flu and norovirus.
Any area with high occupation and footfall is a floor health hazard, not just care homes or hospitals. Restaurants and bars, are also highly hygienically compromised, as are retail locations. Such public spaces are much less likely to have the stringent cleaning regimes required by healthcare facilities, with specially trained cleaning staff specialising in infection control. Therefore, hygiene must be the focus of cleaning, especially in a COVID-19 world.
STOP SPREADING DIRT INSTEAD OF
SANITISING Floor cleaning has been dominated by mopping for decades now. However, it also comes with a reliance on disinfectants, which ultimately becomes counter- productive, much like the overuse of antibiotics in medical treatments. Mops just circulate dirty water each time they are dipped in the bucket. Any dirt is spread around the floor, regardless of water changes, which are never enough to achieve true cleanliness.
We strongly advocate that cleaning regimes abandon the use of the mop, and we have supported this view for quite some time. Using a mop has been proven to spread more contaminants than it cleans, therefore a different process driven approach to cleaning is required.
At Rawlins, our method of cleaning requires that you ‘remove, improve, and protect’ in order to clean your floors effectively.
The removal stage is critical, as it means eradicating dirt from hard floors by adding water and the correct dosage of cleaning solution. Automation is the cleaner’s friend here, as using high flow fluid extraction is up to three times faster than mopping. In laboratory tests, this method has been shown to remove more than 99% of bacterial soils, compared with just 51% for a microfibre mop. The mop’s cleaning performance drops further to 24% when it is re-dipped in a bucket of dirty water and then reapplied to the floor, thereby creating a new coat of bacteria and contaminants.
This method of cleaning should be carried out at regular intervals, ideally daily, to ensure that the removal of the day’s dirt is all that is required.
To confirm improvement and the effectiveness of this cleaning process, an ATP (adenosine triphosphate) measurement can be taken before and after the
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‘remove’ process to verify whether surfaces are truly free of biological contaminants.
The final step of the process should be to protect the surfaces with a solution like the unique, water-based Zoono Z-71 Microbe Shield, which is a cost-effective, residual polymer-based antimicrobial defense. Z-71 provides 30-days of active protection for any treated surface, that has undergone the ‘remove and improve’ stages of cleaning.
DON’T DROP THE BALL ON HYGIENE While the pandemic has been a catalyst to encourage
more robust cleaning regimes, we can’t afford to allow these standards to slip. Efficient, scientifically proven cleaning methods should be the mainstay of how we, as an industry, deliver our service to clients. It’s going to take sustained, behavioural change to maintain this as the norm.
Scientists are already saying that we can expect another pandemic event within the next decade or so. Therefore, I believe that intelligent cleaning methods, technology, supported ‘smart’ cleaning solutions like Z-71 will be the way forward to a safer environment.
www.rawlins.co.uk/
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