Seeing Colors By: Rich Parillo In Restrooms And Beyond The multi-faceted benefits of a color-coded program. B Rich Parillo was formerly the director of environmen-tal services for a New York-area hospital and is now a building service contractor (BSC) specialist for ProLink, a leading marketing and buying group for the professional cleaning industry. Before reading this article, please take a couple of moments to answer the following questions: Do you clean or manage facilities where cross contamination is a concern? Do any of your cleaning workers have trou-ble speaking and reading English fluently? Have restroom cleaning tools ever been used to clean desks, ledges and other areas of your facilities? Does your company have a high cleaning worker turnover? Do you clean or manage daycare centers, restaurants, medical facilities or nursing homes? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could benefit — and possibly reduce health care problems — by using color-coded microfiber cleaning cloths and mop heads. In fact, today, with increased public health con-cerns regarding H1N1 influenza (swine flu), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other potentially life-threatening viruses, many facilities have considered or have already color-coded all cleaning-related products. Institute of Cleaning Sciences (BICS) for cleaning professionals and facility managers is an example of how these colors can be used for spe-cific tasks: Red: For cleaning and disinfecting toilets, urinals and high-risk or hazardous restroom areas Yellow: For cleaning showers, mirrors and other low-risk restroom areas Green: For cleaning areas where food is handled and stored Blue: For all other areas and surface types, but never in areas where red, yellow or green tools are mandated. In the United States, blue is often used to clean glass and for general cleaning in restrooms. When it comes to color-coding in the profession-al cleaning industry, there really is no universal standard. This is somewhat surprising because the indus-try has been developing standards and “best prac-tice” procedures for all types of cleaning duties. Even in hospitals and medical facilities, where Definitions And A Little History Color-coding, as it applies to the pro-fessional cleaning industry, can be defined as the principle of using color to designate certain cleaning tools or procedures to specific tasks or areas. In most situations where it is incor-porated, a few colors are selected, with each color denoting either a partic-ular duty, such as cleaning toilets and uri-nals, or a specific area, such as restrooms. Although details and procedures can vary, especially here in the United States, a color-coding approach developed by the British for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Color-coded . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Microfiber . The use of colors in a cleaning program defies language barriers and lowers the risk of cross contamination. 30 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2009
CMM – Archives Aug 2009: 30
