Commercial Laundry Health Regulations

[pulsator]

Ok, many of you may know, I work at my local YMCA as a laundry technician and I have a bit of a problem. The other employees don't seem to be taking proper care in washing the towels. First, I should tell you what they are doing that bothers me.
1.) They(the employees) are refusing to wear gloves when handling the soiled towels.
2.) They are putting clean towels back in the dirty towels bins to wait for the dryer.
3.) They are not cleaning the lint trap on the dryer.
4.) They are not washing their hands after handling soiled towels.

Ok, now I must try to solve the problem. I have tried reminding them multiple times, I have tried yelling, I have brought it to the attention of the "head authorities" at the YMCA and they do not seem to care one bit. I just know that if continues, someone is going to end up with AIDS or something nearly as serious because the towels end up with blood, hair, and god knows what else on them and they don't even wear gloves. Then they go on their lunch break WITHOUT washing their hands!!!! This is serious business and I want to change things. What should I do? Is there a list of laundry regulations? Should I sic a health inspector on them? What????? I am really confused, annoyed, and tired of all the sh** going on and I don't want this to end with a lawsuit. I have tried almost everything and now I am just stuck. I, of course, follow proper procedures, (in my book at least,) which consists of:
1.) Wearing a fresh pair of disposable gloves to handle soiled towels.
2.) Washing my hands after handling the soiled towels quickly followed by a large amount if Purrel hand sanitizer.
3.) NOT putting clean towels back in the dirty bin.
4.) Rewashing towels that fall on the floor.
5.) Cleaning the lint trap after each load.

I just don't know if there is more that I should do. Where would I go to find a list of regulations? PLEASE HELP ME!!!!!!

 

[Kevinpreston3]

This reminds me...

of how cleaniness standards are different for different people.

I never, EVER give my baby his bottle back after it hits the floor. I always wash it with hot water. When he was an infant, I would replace the nipple with a fresh one if the bottle had fallen. Overkill? Maybe.

The few times, and I mean few, that I have gone to a laundramat was to wash my car covers, I wash them and dry them outside now. The last time I was there, a college aged girl was using a dryer, and unloaded all her clean bras and panties. She accidently dropped them all onto the floor. She laughed and picked them up and went merrily on her way home. I just thought that was so gross. Who wants some dingy floor dirt up against your privates? I guess she was fine with that.

I have another friend that if a cookie falls on the floor she gives it to her kid, citing that her floors are clean. I am not crazy about that one either. Cookies and wash cycles are cheap, start over!

No offense Pulsator, but I think your coworkers are slobs. Who eats with hands that just touched soiled towels? I think contracting AIDS that way would be a super long shot, but what about hepatitis, strains of herpes, salmonella or other viruses? Yech. How about the idiot members that LEAVE towels for you to have to pick up?

When my kid was taking swimming lessons at the Y, it seemed no matter what time of day we were there there was this same fat teen kid hanging out in the showers and he would have a pile of towels on the floor next to him. I felt sorry for the people having to clean up after that slob.

Maybe what you can try is get a health official in the same room with them right before lunch and tell them of all the intestinal parasites they are getting close to by not following your precautions. Maybe if you ruin their lunch they will remember it.

 

[petek]

I would be more surprised if there wasn't any city or state health regulations regarding this. Check on the city and state websites for the local or state health department and give them a call. If there are regulations and the employee's and administration are flouting them it's up to you whether you report it or not. You can always ask them to do a "random" check and keep you out of it as having been the whistle blower.

 

[whirlcool]

I think that it would be a fire hazard not cleaning the lint trap periodically. I wouldn't be worrying about AIDS, but I would worry about e-coli, which can be deadly.
Are your towels white? And is bleach being used in the wash?

On the same subject, how many people here use aircraft bathrooms barefooted while flying?

 

[Designgeek]

Caution, gross-out alert!
.
.
.
Okay, you were warned....

Here's what I'd do. Get some chunky peanut butter. Smear just a little on a towel and put it back in the "dirty" bin. Let someone else find it but be sure you're watching discretely when they do.

Then when you see them pick up the towel with the chunky peanut butter stain on it, go "Eww, gross! Feces!" (or use the common expletive for that). Before they can look at it long enough to make out that it's only chunky peanut butter, snatch it from them in your properly gloved hands and toss it into the washer, and toss a few more things in there on top of it.

Set up the cycle for handling a load that contains items soiled with poo-poo, and then tell them, "For all you know, you've been getting poop on your hands, or getting clean towels in the bin with poopy ones. Do you know what e-coli is? Do you want to get explosive diarrhea for three or four days to find out? C'mon dude, this is about making sure people don't get sick! Now let's do it right!"

---

Re floors: If in doubt, throw it out. There are plenty of ways to avoid waste without risking getting sick.

Re. flying: I never knew anyone flew in bare feet in the first place. Consider the possibility that someone on a previous trip on that plane got "air sick" and tossed their proverbial cookies and all of it didn't go in the little bag... And anyone who goes into a public WC in their bare feet is really asking for it. Ewww...!

 

[toggleswitch]

I must say, I'm not a parent but with my nieces...
I have had every conceivable body excretion on me.
I once sadi "give me your gum" and stuck out my cuppedb palm.....is this supposed to skieve(sp?)ordinary mortals? Iimpressed the heck outta one of my sisters grilfriends. I didn't think anything of it.

now backl to my point...

The first child gets sterilized everything.
By the third one, you are sticking the pacifier in your pocket with your keys and money.. (and money is the dirtiest thing on the planet) and right ino thekids mouth it goes.

Why? war-weariness and the other two kids are sticking their dirty unwashed hands right into the baby's mouth anyway.

IMHO the over-clean and the total slobs are the ones who catch illnesses.

(PS... I have a friend who takes his gym bag off the locker-room and gym bathroom floor and throws it on my kitchen table. Wanna see screaming lunatic?...that would be me.)

[PPS My ex didn't think it was necessary to wash hands after a sit-down purge; then made a b-line to the fridge. I was outta there in a week, literally.]

 

[toggleswitch]

Germs a la barbeque

Watch people at the barbeque.

The raw meat comes out of a dish or pan.
Hits the grill.
Goes back onto the same dish/pan.

and I GET LAUGHED AT when I say let me wash that with something that contains bleach....

 

[gizmo]

Hi Jamie

I don't think you should let it get to you. Any workplace has a combination of people with different standards. For people you are "equal to" in the hierarchy, you don't really have any authority to tell them how to do their job, only to tell the managers and hope they do something about it.

From your description, they are not really putting anyone else's health at risk, only their own.

As I see it, you have a couple of choices:

1. - Keep trying to get them to improve. This entails you putting in a lot of effort trying to educate your co-workers and convince them to change their habits. This is likely to stress you, and make things difficult for you if they take offense and give you hard time.

OR-

2. - RELAX! Take pride that you are doing a way better job than your co-workers. But don't beat your head against a brick wall over your co-workers behaviour, which is not your responsibility.

I work in a restaurant kitchen which has different people working on different shifts. Same for my previous job, so I have been in the same basic situation for 20 years now. I have faced the same problem, I am meticulous at work, always keep a bucket of clean hot soapy water nearby and keep work surfaces spotless, plus at the end of the day I go over the whole place again, searching out hidden spots that haven't had a thorough clean in ages. (usually not too hard to find them, either!)
Other workers finish up sooner as they are more superficial in their cleaning. Sometimes I feel under pressure to cut corners to finish up sooner, to keep wage costs down, as I tend to finish much later that the others.
as a funny aside, co-workers assume I must be equally fastidious at home, if they visit they are often surprised - our house is usually a mess! I am NOT a keen housekeeper at all. You know all the gags - vacuum once a month whether it needs it or not, etc etc.

I don't know if you have ever studied the immune system at school, but I did, it is fascinating. Our immune system learns by exposure, we develop immunity by being exposed to the things that make us sick. Exposure to dirt, bacteria, etc is ESSENTIAL to us developing a healthy immune system. As our society becomes more paranoid about germs, we get less exposure so we become more vulnerable to what were previously harmless bacteria. This is why when we travel overseas, we often get sick eating food that the locals eat all the time - we haven't yet developed the immunity that they have.
Which is a lot of waffle to say...don't stress about it.

I should shut up for now, but if you want I can give some ideas to get cleaning moved up the priorities at your work. Where I used to work for 15 years, the workforce was mostly teenagers and early 20s, we put in a number of "games" to encourage people to clean well and to make it more fun, less of a chore. I got to management level and had to supervise other peoples' cleaning, which gave me more of a say in setting the standard. Still had to do it within wages budget, though.
Best Wishes

Chris.

 

[Kevinpreston3]

I disagree Gizmo

People like this ARE putting more than just their health at risk.

If they are touching dirty towels, then touching a phone you use, they can transfer bacteria not to themselves, but to the next person that uses that phone and say, scratches their nose or mouth, or just gets the mouthpiece up to their mouth. In other words, the bacteria on their hands travels to other places that people use.

Everyone is at risk when you have one dirty slob in the mix. While the immune system is very strong and can build up resistance, we are talking about potentially the worst strains of bacteria on these towels.

I totally agree with Pulsator in the handling of this material.

 

[whirlcool]

You wouldn't beleve..

the amount of people who take off their shoes shortly after an airplane takes off. I see it almost every day. Most certainly don't bother to put their shoes back on when they hit the can.
Eeeech!
I have seen aircraft cleaners cleaning the bathrooms. They just use a mop and wipe the whole inside down, floors, ceilings and walls with the same mop! Then they use glass cleaner to "touch up" the sink and the mirror.
How many people drink water in an aircraft restroom sink? Maybe to brush your teeth?
We (the crew) never do any of this, we know better. Next time you need to brush your teeth, ask the flight attendant for a couple of bottles of water before you go in there, believe me, they will understand!

 

[peterh770]

The only "regulation" you are going to have is if the management decides to take disciplinary action against those who do not follow a washing procedure set forth. So then, who is going to police, enforce and write people up? You? See how quickly your popularity plummets...

Besides, if you are the "laundry technician", then why are others doing the washing? That should be left to you since you are the appointed person paid to do that. I wouldn't think that someone is needed for full time laundering in a Y, not even part time. A hotel, yes. A Y or anyother health club, no. The receptionist can do that between answering the phone and checking membership cards.

Don't most members bring their own towels? That must be a pretty exclusive and well funded Y to provide towels for its members. My Y dues are $48/month and they don't provide towels!

Protect yourself. And when other employees and members start complaining of antibiotic-resistant staff infections, you can say "I told you so".

 

[Kevinpreston3]

Ok ok I am on a clean kick

Speaking of using one towel...

I have seen hotel maids wipe down the toilet and then with the same rag wipe down the bathroom counter. Again, not following very simple rules. One set of rags for the toilet, one for the rest of the bathroom, mop for the floor. Or, if the bathroom is small, you can "work down", doing the mirrors, then the counters, and finally the floors. From cleaner to dirty as they say.

The toilet should be cleaned by itself. I don't understand why many people think that one rag is good for everything.

On the bar-b-que note, I have seen people use the same plate. Really not a good idea. Alot of times I will prep the meat in the container it came in, take that out with the meat on it, and then throw it away, using a plate to place the cooked meat onto. Nice and clean. In fact, when I cook a chicken dish, I cut and prep the chicken first, then while it starts to cook I clean the entire area where chicken was, THEN I prepare the other food. Otherwise you can contaminate other food. And don't wipe your "chicken hands" on the dish towel!!!!!

I may be overly strict in cleanliness, but illness is very, very rare in my household, I think with good reason.

 

[toggleswitch]

IMHO cook the chicken dish last. Many germs found in food can't survive without a "flesh" host.If a spot is missed, chances are most of those germns will die within an hour.

Ditto toilets. If it was living on (or.... ew... in a person) it will be dead in literally 1/2 an hour when on a non-host surface.

Be careful, but don't let it make you nuts. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

It's all in the mind (perception that is) I say. When cleaning my bird cages and I get some dropping on my hands-- not prob at all. A little soap and water afterwards and I'm ok. But after my cat got diabetes I could no longer clean her #2 out of the litter box without gagging-- (with a scoop of course) -- and I had done it for 10 years before, no problem. It's all where you set-point is.

I cant tell you haw much hell my nieces gave me when changinng their baby sister and i would tear and gag to kingdom come. They would laugh till it hurt! When the baby figured it out she was oh so still and cooperative becasue she knew the show was coming!

 

[petek]

Steve you never said you had birds before...what kind..

And speaking of changing dirty diapers. When my now 30+ yr old niece was a baby and I'd sit, invariably I'd end up with that awful chore.
And as always when I hear her beaking off to her kids I have to remind her in a kind way of course , the inhuman smells she subjected me to all those years ago.

 

[toggleswitch]

Sugar Honey Iced Tea,
Dont you guys know enough about my life? LOL

Parakeets and finches; 2 cages.

Got them after my cat died. She was 10 and had severe diabetes. I had an acute fear of needles. Not after learning how to inject Miss Pussoir with insulin!

Had to get the birds because a friend threatened to get us a dog. And that would have meant an instant divorce.

D-oh. In retrospect I would have had a dog and been single...what a dumb-@$$. LOL