Determining the Hygiene of Laundering Industrial Textiles in Slovenia, Norway and Denmark

Abstract

Since textiles sent to industrial laundries contain all sorts of pathogenic organisms, it is important that laundering results not only in an appropriate cleaning effect, but a satisfactory disinfecting one as well. Although the procedure of laundering itself is most important for achieving disinfection, it is also essential to maintain an appropriate hygiene level in the segments of the process that treat cleaned and disinfected laundry. This should be done in order to prevent recontamination by environmental viable microorganisms, from manual handling of textiles in the processes such as ironing, folding, packing etc. The investigation presented evaluates the hygiene level of hospital textiles in Slovenia and Denmark, as well as the hygiene level of different textiles from different segments of the food-processing industry in Slovenia and Norway. The German RAL-GZ 992 quality assurance system, based on the requirements of the Robert-Koch Institute, the European standard RABC and the HACCP-principles are used to determine the hygiene level of the laundered textiles in Slovenia. For the hygiene level of the Danish laundries, the total bacteria count, and enterobacteria count are determined at control points, while the aerobic count, coliform count and E.coli count are determined at control points for the hygiene level of the Norwegian laundries. The examination shows that using regular cleaning and disinfecting measures by all staff is of crucial importance in achieving an appropriate hygiene level and that the disinfection effect of the laundering procedure is the preliminary condition for disinfected textiles.