If you’re planning on looking into biohazard cleaning company in Needles, California, you already know that you need a special type of cleaning. Regular cleaning involves making sure that the space you’re cleaning looks good and smells good. Biohazardous cleanup goes way beyond that. It’s a special type of cleaning that gets rid of biohazards that can cause illness or disease in humans. When you have situations that require this type of cleaning, you need to work with companies that offer it.
What Are the Steps Involved in Biohazard Cleaning?
Biohazard cleaning involves a very specific process. The reason that this process exists is because it’s important to make sure that all biohazards have been removed from the site. Biohazards are pathogens, the microorganisms that cause diseases in humans. If these microorganisms are not cleared away properly, you’re opening up the possibility of contributing to the spread of disease. The spread of pathogens from one person to another is the way that diseases spread. Pathogens must be cleared away using specific tools, cleaners, and cleaning methods.
Secure the Site
When the cleaner arrives, the first thing that they’re going to have to do is secure the site. The goal here is to make sure that the contaminated area of the site is separated from the uncontaminated areas. Of course, there are situations where adjacent rooms will need to be cleaned. This will be the case if there’s a possibility that some biohazardous waste particles were transferred by air from room to room.
Remove all visible waste from the room
The next step in the process will be to make sure that all visible waste is removed from the room. This means that we’re going to be getting rid of all of the waste that’s visible to the naked eye, including elements like blood, garbage, dirty needles, and anything else that you can see. When we’re getting rid of biohazardous waste, we dispose of it in special bags and containers that are built to hold and conceal the contents so that they don’t end up contaminating other surfaces or items.
Deep Cleaning
The next step of the process involves the cleaning, disinfecting, sanitizing, and deodorizing of the space. For this step of the process, cleaners are going to work with special cleaners, solvents, deodorizers, and machines that help them with the job. The cleaners that they’ll use will be EPA and OSHA-approved cleaners that are specifically designed to attack and kill pathogens.
It can’t be stressed enough how important this part of the process is. Disinfection is particularly important because failure to remove pathogens could increase the risk of exposure to diseases like hepatitis C, hepatitis A or HIV. Using regular cleaners for this part of the process will only make things worse in the future. The surfaces where the biohazardous waste existed must be completely sanitized and cleaned so that people can use it safely in the future. Situations where biohazards were not properly cleaned have led to disease breakouts. That is absolutely something you don’t want to have to deal with.
Confirm That Cleaning Has Been Done Properly
Once cleaning has been completed, you want to have confirmation that the spaces are actually sanitary and have been fully disinfected. Biohazard cleaning teams use special technology to help ensure that the area that has been cleaned is actually up to the standards necessary to deem it safe for human habitation and use. One thing that many teams use is something called adenosine triphosphate, also referred to as ATP. This enzyme helps detect how much organic matter remains on a surface after cleaning has been completed. It’s used in healthcare settings to help ensure that instruments, surfaces and other elements used by healthcare professionals are at hospital levels of sanitization.
How the Team Stays Safe
Cleaning teams that are responsible for cleaning up biohazardous waste need to ensure that they protect themselves as well. Not wearing the proper protective gear can lead to the team becoming infected themselves.
All Biohazard Waste cleaning teams wear PPE, or personal protective equipment. They put on full coveralls or bodysuits that helped protect the clothing from head to toe. They wear special shoe covers that not only prevent their shoes from getting covered with contaminants, but also help prevent the contaminants from being spread from room to room. The shoe covers are disposable, so they’re removed and disposed of as soon as cleaner leaves the room. They wear goggles, face masks, and respirators to help protect their eyes, noses, and mouths from contaminants. They use special tools that help them Reach even the most hard-to-reach areas of a site so that they can practice no touch cleaning method.
Disposal of the Waste
Once the waste has been packed up into bags, it will need to be transported from the site. The final festination will be a waste disposal facility where the waste will be incinerated. Once it’s incinerated, it will be taken to a sanitary landfill.
Biohazard waste cleanup needs to be taken seriously. It’s not something that individuals can do on their own, especially if they don’t have the equipment, cleaners, and cleaning knowledge necessary to get it done properly. Getting the cleaning done correctly isn’t just great for your own peace of mind, but it also helps ensure that anyone coming into the space in the future is fully protected.
Give us a call if you have any questions about the biohazard cleanup process in Needles, California. We can help you figure out whether your specific situation requires biohazard cleanup and what the next steps should be.