tackling trouble areas The universality of the visible spectrum allows a color-coded cleaning program to supersede language barriers. Cleaning With Colors By: Eric Gaudet If you think that colors don’t matter in cleaning, then you need to think again. es ag Im C ER of sy te ur co Wipin g . nc sI ct du Pro N Nearly all industries benefit from using col-ors to clean, including medical centers, hotels, restaurants, schools, daycares and nursing homes. A color-coded cleaning program is intended to help you identify different col-ored cleaning products such as rags, tow-els and cloths and mops for specific tasks or areas at the facility you clean and/or manage. Within the professional cleaning industry, there are many advantages to developing and integrating color coding into your existing program, including to: Control infection Prevent cross-contamination Differentiate for specific tasks or jobs Identify between departments Help bridge the language barrier Simplify employee training. Over the past couple years, we have experienced increased public awareness regarding serious outbreaks surrounding various strains of influenza, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella and more. With this awareness comes the responsi-bility to make sure that you are not a factor contributing to the spread of infection. By making sure you have a color-coded cleaning program in place, you and your staff will help prevent cross-contamination by using different colored cleaning products when sanitizing a restroom than you would a common area or a food preparation station. It is recommended, for proper infection control when cleaning specific depart-ments, that you always begin with the cleanest areas and finish with the dirtiest. For example, if you plan to use the same colored cloth in the restroom, it would be strategic to start with either the sink or shower and finish with the toilet. Infection Control And Preventing Cross-contamination A fundamental of color coding in the pro-fessional cleaning industry is the emphasis on infection control and preventing cross-contamination between different depart-ments and wiping applications. Differentiate For Specific Tasks And Departments Typically, a small handful of colors are used to clean different departments in a facility or for specific tasks or jobs. Although there technically is not a “color standard” in the United States, there are general trends that have emerged, which many have come to observe: Using specific colored cloths in certain areas of a facility minimizes the chance of cross-contamination. 36 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • July 2010
CMM – Archives July 2010: 36
