How Clean are Your Floors? The Many Hazards Created by Brooms and Mops

How Clean are Your Floors? The Many Hazards Created by Brooms and Mops

Do you own a business, or are you responsible for the cleanliness of a large facility such as an industrial warehouse or retail store? If so, are you still using a traditional mop, bucket, or broom to clean your area? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then you need to ask yourself how confident you are in the ability of a mop or broom to clean your floor space effectively. Lots of people are not aware of how hazardous and ineffective brooms and mops are; they think that by dipping a mop in soapy water and spreading it across the floor or sweeping a broom around and disposing of some debris in a dustpan, they are doing their due diligence, but this is unfortunately not the case. To clean your floors effectively, you need an industrial cleaning machine, as they are much more efficient and leave your floor clean without posing any significant hazards to your customers or employees. To justify this further, consider why using a mop or broom is inappropriate for cleaning your floors.

The Hazards Created by Brooms and Mops

Firstly, a significant hazard created by using a mop and bucket cleaning method is that it spreads bacteria and does not clean anything. Think of the process of mopping; when you start with a fresh bucket of water with a cleaning solution and dip your mop in, you are ready to clean your floor; however, every time you put your mop back into the bucket, you are simply contaminating the clean soapy water with the dirt, debris and bacteria that you have on the floor. Thus, you are just spreading dirt, grime and bacteria around, which will not leave your floors clean.

Similarly, brooms are great at disturbing the dirt and debris residing on uncleaned floors and causing them to be airborne. Thus those airborne particles can settle on other surfaces, be resident in the air or come into contact with food.

Now although you may wonder why you should care about spreading so many germs in the cleaning process, in some environments, such as food manufacturing and processing environments spreading germs can lead to foodborne illnesses, and it is important to consider that bacteria contamination is a leading cause of FDA recalls. Also, many agencies and acts have specific rules outlined to maintain clean and safe workplaces that you are to comply with as a business owner. For example, you may need more than just a mop or broom to clean your floor space to allow for compliance with these rules.

A common way that food manufacturing and processing plants attempt to clean their floors without relying on a broom is shop-style vacuums; however, these are also not an effective means of cleaning floors as they can further disperse dust and bacteria into the air. Thus, anyone who works or owns a business in the food industry needs to be aware of the most appropriate and approved cleaning equipment to stay in compliance with any food manufacturing and processing authorities.

Another hazard of mops is that when you are cleaning, you have to block off areas with wet floors signs and wait for the floors to dry before employees and customers can safely re-enter those spaces. Thus cleaning with mops causes significant disturbances and potential hazards if you don't properly block off areas or if people choose to enter them anyway. Also, mops and brooms are easier to trip on. In contrast, large machines can't be tripped over and can operate safely and effectively during business hours without causing significant disturbances.

Now let's compare mops and brooms to industrial equipment!

Compared to a mop and bucket, industrial scrubbers use clean water and detergent to prevent any bacteria from building up or cross-contamination in the cleaning process. They also can dry the floors so that the risk of a customer or employee slipping, tripping or falling is significantly reduced.

Industrial sweepers can also collect dust and debris without projecting bacteria and allergens into the air to contaminate a facility's food, surfaces or air supply. Thus industrial sweepers are much more efficient at removing any lingering dust and debris from the floors without just blowing that debris or dust into the air, where it will continue to be a problem.

Now that I know a mop and broom will not work, what should I use to clean my space?

If you have concluded that a mop and bucket or broom will not clean your space effectively or safely, it is time to start thinking about what will do a better job! So why not consider Nilfisk-Advance cleaning equipment?

Specifically, Nilfisk-Advance cleaning equipment is designed with the intention of meeting the many challenges faced in the food processing industry. Nilfisk-Advance cleaning equipment prevents cross-contamination from any allergens or bacteria using DustGuard technology to trap such dust and suppress that dust from being dispersed. Also, other features include Nilfisk-Advance food-grade, FDA-approved polymer hoses, high-temperature wands and Nomex filters, colour-coded nozzles and modular features engineered to make the cleaning process more manageable. Not only that, but Nilfisk-Advance cleaning equipment has automated filter purging settings such that you can even save time cleaning and maintaining your machines. To learn more about Nilfisk-Advance cleaning equipment and understand how their equipment can work for you and your space, feel free to contact a professional to answer any of your questions today!

Regardless of the cleaning equipment you choose, you must be aware of the many associated hazards and costs and make choices that will be safe for your customers and staff. For example, you want to select the equipment and supplies that most effectively clean your space and leave your customers and employees feeling safe in your business! Also, to avoid spreading bacteria, cross-contamination in cleaning, and the substantial risk of falling or tripping, it is much better to opt for industrial cleaning equipment as it will save you much money and headaches in the long term!