Many cleaning companies including ourselves and suppliers to the industry currently follow the British Cleaning Council’s guidelines for colour coding materials used and the areas they are used to clean but there are still many variations across the industry and cross contamination is still occurring. In fact hotel cleaning was recently featured on Channel 4’s Dispatches when an agency operative used a single dirty towel to clean an entire bathroom!
Blue is currently used for low risk areas, green for food and beverage areas, yellow for clinical, red for washrooms and white is used for site specific cleaning. Using one cloth to clean all may save time but we believe it is not about how long a job takes, it is about getting the job done in the most hygienic and efficient way possible.
The British Cleaning Council have formed an industry wide working group to specifically look at the issue of colour guides in the aim of cracking colour coding. Questions that they will look to answer will include:- should equipment such as scourers, gloves, spray bottles etc. also be colour coded and are new colours required or additional patterns like stripes for example to specific settings.
There will be more to come from the working group and updates to follow and if you have a view or an idea, send your suggestions via the British Cleaning Council website http://www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
