Would you allow your Babies crawl across a contaminated floor? Well the answer should read Yes! as we allow our babies crawl and play on contaminated floors everyday of the week. The fact is people have got used to poor cleaning methods resulting in serious contamination of a floors surface irrespective of the floor finish resulting in health issues for our babies. Some of these of issues we need to look at are listed below.
- Dirty Mops: The Same mop used on a daily basis becomes a breeding ground for all types of bacteria germs and pathogens. Such as E.Coli this can cause a particular nasty case of diarrhoea "It's the bacteria that killed four children and caused a lot of illness at Jack-in-the-Box restaurants in California in 1993," according to Donna Duberg, MA, MS, from the clinical laboratory science at Saint Louis University.
- Dirty water: is a breeding ground for Skin and respiratory organisms such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria including the MRSA strain, Group A also known as the "flesh-eating" bacteria.
- Hazardous Chemicals: The over use of Industrial strength cleaning products causes some serious problems you wouldn't allow your child bathe in hazardous Chemicals? No but we do unfortunately the world has become used to using industrial strength cleaning products that supposedly clean our floors when in truth they course more problems that are not always visible on first inspection. They don't cause infection, but they can exacerbate asthma, allergies and skin irritations.
- Poor Cleaning Practice: We need to be thorough when floor cleaning as we are aware Babies explore with there hands so a quick sweep of your floor is not always good enough. Your baby will pick up and eat any large chunks of grime, dust food scraps or whatever is left there leading to all types of gastric problems.
- Understanding Instructions: When using cleaning solutions it is important to mix the product as per the manufacturers instructions. Too much water the product won't disinfect, too little and the cleaner could strip your floor never mind your Babies skin.
What can we do to solve the problems above well the answer to the above is not always that simple firstly we have to ask what floor surface, how big is the area, whats my budget are there any floor manufacturer recommendations. Once we have answered the basic questions we then need to work on implementing a cleaning programme this can help us decide on one of the following methods dependent on how much we can afford to invest.
Damp Mopping: With the new generation Micro-Activia Mops we get a mop that can be cleaned by boil washing whilst retaining the qualities of Microfiber. This type of mopping not only does less damage to floors it is quicker, safer, hygienic and more economical than traditional mopping.
Floorwasher: If you have a bigger budget maybe look at investing in a Floorwash Machine these will brush, mop, clean and pick the dirty water up in one movement covering 45m2/h
No doubt there are other solutions on the market but I hope the above gives you a better insight into some of the issues surrounding floor cleaning.
by Tony Field
November 2016