The Janitors' Closet

Poison via keyless cars

Since a large part of our janitorial service Phoenix program involves methodologies to measurably improve our clients' indoor air quality, I follow a number of news outlets focusing on health and air quality.

In a recent story by the Jacksonville, Florida CBS affiliate, I noticed that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking at a little noticed nationwide epidemic.  "Since 2009, 14 people have died because they forgot to press the off button in their key-less car. Vehicles were left running in garages, slowly flooding homes with deadly carbon monoxide, a colorless odorless gas. Five of those deaths happened in Palm Beach County alone."

My first impression: one third of the deaths in one Florida (retirement) county alone.  Forgetful seniors?

Secondly, though, my sense is that about two deaths per year, nationwide, doesn't quite reach "epidemic" proportions.  I happen to have a key-less car, and also a keyed (is that the proper term?) pickup.  Should I jump out of my (key-less) car without turning off the ignition, it beeps at me.  My truck does not.  So my unscientific hunch is that it would be less likely to find oneself poisoned by a running, key-less car than by the old-fashioned variety.  I saw nothing in the article to compare poisoning rates of key-less to keyed cars, though even my sophomore high school science instructor stressed the importance of controls in any survey or experiment.  Same with my college econ instructor.

But that wouldn't have made good TV news, or a good reason for a bit more NHTSA regulation.

Fortunately, our Phoenix commercial cleaning service does much not have to deal with carbon monoxide.  We concentrate on improving client indoor air quality, and removing allergens and other bad things from the air our clients breathe. Thar means HEPA filtered vacuums, microfiber wipes and damp mops, and careful chemical selection - and we monitor client indoor air quality.  Our results are consistent with the various studies on tweaking janitorial methodologies, and the achievable air quality results: a bit over a 50% reduction in daytime airborne particles, in the size range of most allergens.  Finally, if we goof and leave the van running, it's outside.  No poisoning here.

I also don't worry about my vehicles poisoning me at home.  I don't have a garage.

Damp-mopping with microfiber

Ran across an article published in Cleanlink a bit ago; it details the advantages of modern microfiber damp mop technology, and is as apt today as when it initially appeared.

"More than 90 percent of the mopping in the United States uses a traditional string mop with a single compartment bucket. According to a study conducted by the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences, in a traditional mopping system, the water and mop head soil rapidly after the first few dips into the mop bucket. Potential contaminants and soil are redistributed to the floor and/or grout lines after the first 1,000 square feet of mopping. 

"This cleaning process may also damage building interiors, specifically the vertical baseboard grout lines causing a “ring around the building.” This occurs when the string mop, saturated with dirty mop water, is maneuvered close to the floor edges. The higher string mop profile of two to three inches drags along the baseboard causing soiling. Over time, this unintended consequence of mopping lowers appearance-based cleaning scores. Eventually it will cost the building service contractor time and money in grout restoration."

I use the "ring around the building" test when doing an initial walk-through on a sales call; I point the ring out to the client, and explain that it's the result of outdated string mop technology.  Then I ask to see the janitor closet, to confirm the string mop diagnosis.  It's an easy way to look competent.

A few thoughts on microfiber:

Both field experience and numerous studies indicate that microfiber ("flat") damp mops use less solution, need less chemical in that solution, and leave a cleaner floor than traditional string mops.

Because microfiber mops lay down less solution than string mops, less solution is used.  Given better scrubbing action and better absorption of the microfiber, we also found that we could "ratchet down" the chemical used in the solution, substituting a neutral cleaner for an alkaline one, or even plain water for a neutral cleaner.  So less chemical used, less water, and fewer trips to the slop sink.  The microfiber also picks up more of the solution it laid down, so the floor dries faster (quite an important safety consideration in a 24 hour a day facility, with folks walking around) and leaves less watermarking.

Further, the microfiber picks up small particles, and even bacteria, much better than cotton string mops, so the floor is left cleaner.  Better appearance, fewer particles left to become airborne and impact indoor air quality, and less dust left tonight to be dealt with tomorrow night.

Worker productivity is improved: the microfiber mops cover a wider area, and hence move faster; get under furniture and along edges more efficiently; are lighter, reducing worker fatigue; and don't slop solution up onto baseboards and furniture legs.

Floors look better: less streaking and water marking, and less soil left behind.  Not much to not like.

Air pollution harms carotid arteries

"People living in areas with more air pollution face a greater risk of carotid artery stenosis, a narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the brain", according to research scheduled for presentation at the American College of Cardiology's 64th Annual Scientific Session in San Diego, which I noticed in an article in Medical Press.

There have been numerous studies linking air pollution and various cardiovascular problems, but they've looked at the heart itself and its surrounding arteries, not the arteries in the neck that supply blood to the brain.  This study involved 300,000 participants, so it has a respectable base, focused on particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and revealed a 24% greater risk of carotid artery stenosis for those living in the more polluted zip codes.

The article (and, I gather, most of the other studies) do not attempt to isolate those factors in polluted air that impact the body.  Could be various allergies, other fine particles, or gas.  So we really do not know exactly how (or even if - should gasses, not small particles, turn out to be the culprit) keeping one's indoor air relatively free of small particles constitutes a health benefit.  But, I figure, it cannot hurt.

That is why we use HEPA filtered vacuums (which filter out particles down to 0.3 micrometers, much smaller than what the study looked at), microfiber dusting and mopping (to capture small particles), and so on, and why we measure client indoor air quality periodically - to see if we're improving daytime airborne particle load like we claim to do.

There are simple, inexpensive tweaks to normal commercial janitorial cleaning.  While keeping our client workplaces a bit healthier for the folks who work and visit there, we also keep their facilities sharper looking.  After all, the dust that you don't much want to inhale, that the vacuum (or dust mop) failed to contain, is also dust that you don't want to see around your office.

Poor air quality puts men at higher suicide risk

Ran across a study, via our affiliate the American Indoor Air Quality Council, that appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology, claiming men had a 25% higher suicide risk after short term exposure (two or three days) to nitrogen dioxide, and a 5% higher suicide risk after similar exposure to high concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5).

Kind of got my attention.  In particular, the 5% higher risk tied to small airborne particle exposure, while pretty small, does lead one to think more favorably about cleaning programs designed to reduce airborne particles.

So, given  our use of HEPA filters on our vacuums, use of microfiber dust wipes and damp mops, vacuuming rather than dust-mopping, and careful chemical selection, our CBN Building Maintenance clients are just a bit more likely to be with us long term than are clients of our competitors.

Or at least the males.

Cut workplace absenteeism - some sanitation tips

Flu and cold season is just around the corner.  Sick employees coming to work will infect others, who will infect others.  This from a friend, Dr. Charles Gerba, down the road at the University of Arizona:

“In our studies, we found if we put a racer virus on the doorknob of an office building, we can detect it on 50 percent of the people’s hands that work in the office and half of the surfaces they commonly touch,” says Dr. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona. “People who come to work with the cold virus spread it around.”

Regardless of how thorough a job your janitorial service is doing for you, they cannot deal with ongoing issues through the course of the day.  Here's a few things to look at:

1) Get a pack of sanitizing wipes; have your folks use them throughout the day on shared "touch-points": the front door push bar, phone hand sets, counters, elevator buttons, and the like

2) Place hand sanitizer dispensers at strategic points around the office, like the entry to the lunchroom, or a customer sales counter area

3) Speaking of lunchrooms, constantly wipe, with the sanitizing wipe, coffee pot handles, the fridge and microwave handles (and the microwave control panel), the sink faucet, the counter, the hinged top of the trash can

4) Not that I'm a misogynist (or at least not much), but studies have shown that gals' desks harbor many more critters than do ours.  Two reasons: many ladies take their purses with them into the restroom, and into the stall, and set them on the floor.  Stall floors in restrooms are particularly nasty due to the plume of fine water droplets that erupts from the toilet bowl when it's flushed.  Then, they take the purse back to the cubicle, and set it on the desk.  Go figure.  The second reason is that gals, more than fellows, stash chips and candy bars and such in their desk drawers, attracting critters.  (In passing, I've been advised that if you find yourself stuck in the office over the lunch hour, with no lunch to hand, go rummaging through gals' desk drawers.  Just don't tell them I told so.)

5) Check the hand soap dispensers in the restrooms: If you use "bulk" soap (it comes by the gallon, and you pour it into the wall dispenser or the under-the-counter bottle), you've a 25% likelihood of the soap harboring bacteria - even if it's anti-bacterial soap.  Better to buy the pre-package product.  When the dispenser is empty, you pop in a fresh package and nozzle combination.  Much less chance of contamination.

In passing, the season might be a good excuse to review what your current office cleaning service is doing, infection control-wise.  A good hospital grade disinfectant, after cleaning, in restrooms and lunchrooms; a hydrogen peroxide based cleaner/sanitizer, with a microfiber cloth, for general touch-points; vacuuming hard surface floors, followed by microfiber mopping, both to remove fine particles and pathogens from your facility; black-light inspections, regularly; and crew training.  And, for safety and OSHA compliance, an MSDS book in your janitors' closet - that matches the labels on the janitor's chemicals.  Here's a bit on what we do at CBN.

Health care workers and high rates of asthma

Hadn't expected this:

"Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health are going to try to get to the bottom of one of the mysteries of the health care profession...why do health care workers, from nurses to doctors to therapists, suffer from asthma at twice or more the normal rate of the population.

"The Centers for Disease Control have granted the UT School of Public Health a $1.3 million grant to follow up in the pioneering research done by epidemiologist Dr. George DeClos ten years ago, which discovered the asthma spike."

Guesses for the high rate include disinfectants used on instruments, medications administered via an aerosol, and "very chemically strong cleansers used in hospitals, nursing homes, and other health centers..."  Not to mention latex gloves.

We clean a lot of medical. We do use latex gloves, particularly in restroom cleaning and in health care facilities generally; I do hope latex does not turn out to be the issue.  Clearly, doing commercial janitorial work, we don't get to administer many medications, via aerosol or not, and don't disinfect the instruments.  But cleaning chemicals we do use.

For decades, we've avoided the obvious bad actors: bleach, ammonia, scouring powders, and aerosols generally.  Our go-to cleaning chemical, which also serves as a sterilizer, is a Diversey hydrogen peroxide solution, which ought be relatively benign to our janitors, and leaves virtually no residue for the client to encounter.  Using microfiber cloths for most applications also helps, as the microfiber cleans better than cotton, so we use less chemical and, since it does a good job grabbing hold of even tiny particles,(to bacteria and even some virus size), it is essentially a sanitizer itself.  Finally, we use a hospital grade quat disinfectant; again, low danger.

So I think we're safe, as are our clients.  But I'll follow the research.

Thunderstorms can provoke asthma episodes

Noticing the headline, I assumed (with no justification - gotta stop jumping to conclusions) that the cause might be along the lines of thunder and lightning frightening folks, the chest tightening, heartrate spiking, and suddenly breathing gets labored.  But it's not that at all (maybe):

"Experts are not certain about the exact mechanics of thunderstorm asthma. They hypothesize that heavy thunderstorm winds create updrafts that lift pollen and mold particles from the ground. Beating rain saturates and bursts the particles into tiny pieces. A downdraft then spreads those small particles into the air we breathe. Some think that the electrical charge of the storm may make these tiny particles more likely to stick in the lungs when inhaled.

“There’s a lot of small respirable particles floating around that folks can inhale and (that) contain those allergens that cause them to react,” said Susan Kosisky, chief microbiologist with the U.S. Army Centralized Allergen Extract Lab in Silver Spring, Maryland."

Cool analysis.

Now, my blog is supposed to be about the commercial janitorial service industry, in which I make my living.  I can stretch a point by talking about the above "small respirable particles" and allergens, and what we do to minimize them in our client facility indoor air: HEPA filtered vacs, for both tile and carpet; microfiber wipes and microfiber mops to replace cotton cloths and wet-mops; careful chemical selection, and so on.

And, in measuring our clients' indoor air periodically, we do find that (on a very rough average) we can cut daytime airborne particle count by around 50%.  And that's measuring for particles in the size range of most allergens: spores, pollen, airborne bacteria, dust-mite droppings, etc.

But, backed into a corner, I'd have to admit that the reason the article attracted me was not it's (tangential) applicability to my firm. but the interesting things you run across when you read deeply enough to get past the common assumptions and explanations, and "down into the weeds".

 

Hospital team cleaning

Caught a short article in Cleanlink on applying "team cleaning" to hospitals.  The process is summarized as follows:

"Mercy Hospital’s EVS teams incorporate a starter, a sanitizer and a closer. The starters empty trash receptacles and perform dusting and wiping, the sanitizers clean the restrooms and sanitize high-touch surfaces, and the closers dust mop and wash floors. Each team is assigned to approximately 60 rooms, and each cleaner carries his or her tools on a cart set up for a specific role."

Pretty much in line with standard "team" office cleaning.  I'd tweak it by having the "starter" ("light duty" or "trash and dust" specialist in office cleaning) not just "wipe" but wipe with a sanitizer, preferably on a microfiber cloth, to both clean and sanitize, saving a step for the "sanitizer" crew member; I'd certainly vacuum (using a HEPA filter) rather than dust mop; and I'd specify microfiber damp mops, rather than just "wash", using a fresh mop head in each patient room, thus avoiding cross-contamination.  (Microfiber mops - the flat mops that have a number of similar consumer products - also lay down much less solution, and pick up more of what they lay down, as contrasted with traditional string mops.  The floor dries much faster, certainly a consideration in 24/7 patient and other areas.  Being much lighter than a loaded string mop, microfibers produce much less worker fatigue, as well.)

What particularly caught my eye was the article's assertion that some 95% of hospitals are still cleaned using what the industry calls "zone cleaning", the outmoded predecessor of team cleaning.  Zone cleaning involves a single crew member performing all the cleaning tasks for a number of patient rooms; you tie up a lot of extra equipment, and have to train each crew member in all functions.

I do hope that the 95% figure is inflated, but having seen some janitorial crews in operation, my hopes might be unjustified.

 

Choose the right disinfectant

Proper selection of both disinfectant and methodology, in healthcare facilities, is the subject of an article in Cleanlink.

Quaternary ammonia products seem to be the proper selection, at least in non-isolation rooms, but with a caveat or two:

"For standard disinfection of non-isolation patient rooms, a quat-based disinfectant is generally adequate to achieve hygiene levels while still being economical and safe on most surfaces. But special attention needs to be given to proper dilution and contact times as these are important considerations for product performance. Also, some wiping materials can bind with the active ingredients of quat-based disinfectant products and diminish their disinfectant properties. BSCs should choose the disinfectant product that has the broadest kill claims (efficacy) and the shortest contact times, and ensure that it is compatible with the wiping materials employed."

We like quats for healthcare facilities generally, and also for restrooms and lunchrooms in non-healthcare buildings.  We seperate the cleaning function from the disinfecting; a quat is not a good cleaner, and needs 10-minutes dwell time, wet, to achieve disinfection.  If cleaning, you need to apply, then remove, both cleaner and contaminates ("dirt" to most of us).  Hard to get dwell time if you've removed the product.

Bleach is dealt with, also with cautions:

"As with quat-based disinfectants, care must be taken to ensure that bleach-based products are properly diluted. In the case of healthcare environmental surface cleaning, all chemical products are designed to be diluted with cold water and used at ambient room temperatures.

"Bleach-based products have the advantage of being economical and have a familiar odor but can discolor fabrics and can damage many surfaces.  Peracetic acid-based products are safer on surfaces but have a stronger, unfamiliar odor, which patients and staff can find disagreeable. If using bleach, the CDC recommends an EPA registered disinfectant bleach only after the surfaces have been thoroughly pre-cleaned as bleach is not a one-step cleaner-disinfectant product."

Note the caution about discoloring fabrics.  If one is cleaning ordinary office space, generally carpeted, bleach might not be the best choice.

Further, microfiber wipes:

"The method of application can influence how well the surface is cleaned and disinfected. Microfiber wiping cloths are highly efficient at removing soils and microorganisms from surfaces. Controlled experiments have shown that when properly used, microfiber can reduce microbiological levels by up to 99 percent. Therefore, combining compatible microfiber cloths with a disinfectant cleaner greatly enhances cleaning and disinfection."

Microfiber cleans well using only water.  Add a hydrogen peroxide based product and you get quite effective cleaning, and good sanitation, given a 30 to 60 second dwell time.  Hydrogen peroxide applied to the microfiber limits cross-contamination (the microfiber loaded up with HP is an environment quite hostile to most tiny critters).  A damp microfiber cloth generally generally leaves a surface clean of debris and germs, and leaves the surface damp long enough to kill anything left - effective sanitation.  So we use a hydrogen peroxide product for toudhpoints throughout all our facilities.

 

Microfiber advantage

BSCAI's Services Magazine presents an excellent article on microfiber cleaning.  Besides stressing a full system approach (the article is entitled "Microfiber Cleaning Systems"), emphasis is placed on the equipment available: sizes of cloths and frames, ergonomic handles, solution buckets, extra-absorbent materials, and so on.  Good discussion, also, on what microfiber is, and how it cleans.

What I found most useful was the discussion on efficiency and environmental benefits: Less water, less chemical (often none at all), better indoor air quality - because of both less chemical usageand better dust, allergen and bacterial trapping and removal.

A few years ago, when we converted to microfiber damp mops, we found that we could "dumb down" our cleaning chemical by a step: where we had needed an aggressive, alkaline produce, we could use a neutral product; where we'd used a neutral product, we could use plain water.  Microfiber both scrubs better than cotton, and absorbs better, so less chemical action is needed to clean gunk of the surface and to suspend and allow removal.  Also, applies less water than a string mop, so we use less solution - water and chemical - and picks up more of what it put down, so he floor dries faster, with less water marking or streaking.  Finally, changing the microfiber pad frequently (ideally, rather than re-dunking a pad at all) gives us a clean pad on the floor at all times.  No cross-contamination at all.

The best system we've found is using a Diversey hydrogen peroxide cleaner/sanitizer with the microfiber, whether a damp mop or a cleaning cloth.  The HP solution cleans quite well itself, and leaves virtually no residue (mostly oxygen and water), while giving effective sanitation: similar advantages, you'll have noticed, to those microfiber offers.  Combining microfiber and hydrogen peroxide gives us a great system all the way around.

Related articles

Non-alergic pets? Forget about it.