Introduction

Poorly maintained floors and bad housekeeping are responsible for most slip and trip injuries in the work place. The Auto workshop is a particularly challenging environment to prevent slipping accidents. The very nature of the work activities continually produce floor contaminates. Legally employers are required to ensure the health and safety of their employees and others who may be affected by their work activity. Slip and trip accidents can be serious and costly to the individuals involved and the organization. By thinking through the cleaning process and taking effective measures to control the problem management can significantly reduce the risk of slip incidents at the workplace.

Moisture and oil combine on a typical auto workshop floor resulting in extreme slip hazard

Common causes of slip and fall accidents in the Auto Workshop area are:

• Floor deposits (Oil, black rubber, dirt)
• Moisture from slab sweating (condensation)
• Smooth floor surfaces with little or no traction

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Floor Cleaning to Prevent Slipping

Establishing good housekeeping practices that remove deposits from the surface of the slab will greatly reduce the risk slip and fall. Part of this involves choosing the right cleaning method, and making sure that the cleaning itself does not introduce additional slip risk.

Issues with standard commercial cleaning methods

Many common surface cleaning and washing routines can contribute to this slip and fall threat. For example smooth floors left damp with residue by a mop are still likely to be extremely slippery. Water runoff from washing, containing oil, dirt and grease will become an environmental hazard. Dry cleaning with powder is an effective method for spot cleaning. However for whole floor cleaning, powder is messy, with residual often tracked around by vehicles. Furthermore dry powder requires careful clean up and disposal as the powder absorbs the oil and becomes classified as a hazardous material in its own right.

Microbial cleaning

Microbial cleaning is a much more effective way to achieve the deep cleaning oil contaminated substrates. CT-MicroClean HC uses living organisms (microbes) to eat and consume oil rather than disperse it. Enzymes released by the microbe break the oil contaminant down into digestible pieces. The oil is then consumed as food by the microbe. These microbes migrate into the pores of the concrete to totally digest oils, converting them to carbon dioxide and water, eliminating problems of residual pollutants.

Where cleaning is carried out effectively, it can make the difference between a floor being an unacceptably high slip risk or an acceptably low slip risk.

CT-MicroClean HC is a very green cleaning process, cleaning without pollution. The product has no VOC’s is Non Hazardous, Non Flammable and there are no restrictions on the surfaces it can be used on.