CMM Weekly Recap-February 28, 2020

Cleaning professionals are very busy people, and it’s easy to miss important news. Take advantage of this week’s recap of what’s important to you, brought to you by the CMM editorial staff.

Sustainability issues

When you think of sustainability, you probably think about saving water or electricity. Do you think about saving food? A new study found that one-third of all food available for human consumption is wasted. The resources used to produce this wasted food has a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide. If food waste could be represented by its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States. As many facilities, from hospitals and long-term care centers to school campuses, provide food services, food sustainability is an ongoing topic of importance.

EVS and partnerships

Cleaning professionals don’t work by themselves; they depend on partnerships and communication to achieve their goal of making sure facilities are clean and healthy for building patrons. Environmental services workers (EVS) in hospitals are no exception. An article in Infection Control Today detailed how EVS staff and infection preventionists (IPs) can work together to assure the best cleaning and disinfection processes will become protocol in health care facilities. EVS staff and IPs can meet regularly to review best practices for specific facility areas, evaluate and approve the best cleaning solutions and disinfectants, and set up quality assurance metrics to determine if EVS staff are cleaning thoroughly enough to prevent health care-associated infections.

Coronavirus updates

Coronavirus continues to be a main topic in the news. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes it is only a matter of time before more people in the United States come down with COVID-19, facility managers and professional cleaners have a vested interest in learning to eliminate the new virus should it be present in their facility. The U.S. government has taken steps to prevent the novel coronavirus from sickening more Americans by requesting a funding commitment of at least US$2.5 billion to help combat the germ’s spread. The funding would support all aspects of the U.S. response including public health preparedness and response efforts, public health surveillance, epidemiology, lab testing, quarantine costs, and research and development of new vaccines and therapies.

Don’t let fears about coronavirus ruin your weekend. CMM will be back with more news on Monday.