Changing cleaning culture

The rapid escalation of the importance of cleaning and hygiene has been most evident as COVID-19 grips the world. Not only have personal, daily hygiene practices become essential to our society, but so has the wider scale, long-term protection of our public spaces.

Here we are again in another national lockdown as Christmas approaches. I'm sure we all thought that this test would be over long before the festive season, but it seems that COVID-19 has other plans for us. Or is it because we may have become too confident too soon and lax in our safety practices? A little of both surely. We may even see another quarantine before a vaccine is completed and administered to the population. 

It’s very important to the Rawlins’ team that we reiterate the importance of not falling behind in our regime to achieve true cleanliness. Our mantra throughout this pandemic has been to encourage professional cleaners to adopt the method of ‘remove, improve, and protect’ in cleaning methodology. 

That means using the correct chemistry to clean surfaces. Do not over-use antibacterial solutions or they will eventually become ineffective and compound the problem. Do extract the soiled fluid from your floors and surfaces – don't push it around with a dirty mop or cloth and spread biological contaminants further. 

Finally, protect thoroughly cleaned surfaces with an effective antimicrobial shield like Zoono Z-71. If applied after following the first two steps, which are consistently backed up with a daily cleaning regime, long-lasting protection against pathogens can be achieved for up to 30 days. What a significant difference that would make in our fight against COVID-19 right now.

Zoono products have been an inspired offering for us to recommend at Rawlins, because of their unique long-term effectiveness. In fact, the Zoono team has recently released new data on fresh laboratory testing, which reconfirms the remarkable performance of the products. The water-based Z-71 microbial shield was tested in various controlled and practical surface applications, and rejected contamination of pathogens to 99.999% efficacy for 30 days; this is even after heavy use on high-traffic touch points. Therefore, it remains the perfect ‘finish’ for our ‘remove, improve, and protect’ ethos on cleaning.

We will fare better in this pandemic, if we really start to understand the nature of dirt removal, and how to do it on a scientific basis. The days of pushing around a dirty mop need to be far behind us. Removal of dirt should mean just that; and as cleaning industry professionals, we have a duty of care to ensure that the environments we treat, are really clean – just as we say they are. 

Scientists are already saying  that we can expect another pandemic event in about a decade or so. In which case, we must be prepared. Evolving to cope with another crisis means changing the way we approach the problem by being smarter and more effective. Let’s start that process now, as we mean to continue. The World Health Organization says we should tackle COVID-19 with ‘science, solutions, and solidarity’. I think this is a sound approach and we can start with our own science-based cleaning practices in this great industry. Our communities are depending on us to keep environments hygienically safe and it is in our power to do so.