Almost every industry benefits from a color-coded cleaning system, including hospitals, hotels, restaurants, schools, daycares, offices, and nursing homes. Color-coding is intended to help you identify different colored cleaning products such as microfiber cloths, wet mops, microfiber mop pads and dust mops for specific tasks or areas in your facility. Developing and integrating color-coding into your existing program has many advantages in the professional cleaning industry, including:
- Preventing cross-contamination
- Distinguish tasks and jobs based on their specific needs
- Controlling infectious diseases
- Inventory management
What is the color-coding standard?
There is no official standard when it comes to color-coding, you can design your own to fit the system you are putting in place. In the cleaning industry the most common tendency is:
- Blue: Windows, doors, glass cleaning and hallways
- Green: General areas such as kitchens, desks and tables
- Red: Areas such as restrooms around toilets where the risk of cross-contamination and spreading infectious diseases is the highest
- Yellow: Lower risk areas in restrooms such as sinks
We also carry most of our products in additional colors so you can design your own system to fit your needs. Some of the other colors we carry in a variety of products are: Gray, Orange, White and Purple. With adding these to your cleaning arsenal you can target specific rooms with specific colors. We also carry specifically our microfiber terry cloths in 13 different colors as they are the most common color-coded product.
How does color-coding help prevent cross-contamination and the spread of infectious diseases?
Cross contamination is the process by which bacteria or other microorganisms are unintentionally transferred from one substance or object to another, with harmful effects. So if you are cleaning a hazard area and then use that same cleaning product in a different area you are transferring that bacteria to the cleaner environment. This is why color-coding products play such an essential role in the prevention of this.
If you have a color-coded cleaning program in place, you and your staff will be able to prevent cross-contamination by sanitizing restrooms differently than common areas or food preparation stations. The best method of infection control when cleaning specific departments is to start with the cleaner area and finish with the dirtiest. As an example, if you intend to use the same colored cloth in the restroom, it's wise to start with either the sink or the shower and finish with the toilet.
By implementing your own color-coded cleaning system you can provide your clients, a cleaning system that prevents cross-contamination and helps control infectious diseases. While also helping your employees distinguish between tasks, jobs and departments.