Hotels are high-traffic areas, with hotel bedding and towels changing hands hundreds of times every year, making them a prime target for the spread of viruses and bacteria.
Hotel linens must not only look and smell pristine for each guest, but also carry zero risk of viral contamination. As such, hotel owners and managers must be aware of the potential risks associated with their laundry services. Taking the necessary steps to manage these risks is essential for keeping guests safe and healthy.
Viruses Transmitted Through Laundry
Viruses are fairly delicate microorganisms and do not survive for long outside of the host body. Furthermore, they don’t cope as well on soft textile surfaces as they do on desks, door handles, and other hard, nonporous surfaces, so the transmission risk from hotel bedding is relatively low. However, in a consumer facing industry, with business reputation and the health of customers at stake, any risk is too high.
The following common viruses may be contracted from soiled hotel linen if it is not washed properly:
1) Norovirus: The most common virus transmitted by laundry is norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal distress such as diarrhoea, vomiting, and stomach cramps. It’s the classic tummy bug virus that people often contract when travelling away from home, and most people put it down to unclean cutlery or insufficiently cooked food. However, norovirus is highly contagious and can just as easily spread from person to person via contaminated hotel bedding or towels.
2) Coronaviruses: Another family of viruses capable of spreading through used hotel laundry are the coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes the disease Covid-19), as well as several coronaviruses that cause the common cold. These are mainly airborne viruses but some surface transmission is possible, e.g. in busy hotel rooms with a very short handover time between guests.
In the right conditions, both viral groups can survive on surfaces for several hours, or even a couple of days, making them particularly dangerous in hotel settings where they can easily be transferred from guest to guest via contaminated surfaces or linens.
It’s important to note that while these viruses are the two most common, there are other pathogens that can be transmitted through contaminated laundry as well, including several dangerous bacterial pathogens and blood-borne viruses.
Reducing your contamination risk through proper cleaning techniques
There are several steps you can take to reduce your contamination risk – apart from thorough and regular room cleaning between guests and professional sanitisation of communal areas. In the laundry, the first step is to ensure that the correct cleaning methods are being used on a regular basis.
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Using a hot water cycle (at least 65°C, which is enough to kill most viruses and bacteria) with detergent or a liquid sanitiser will eradicate residual pathogens on fabrics before they have a chance to infect another guest.
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It’s essential to make sure all bedding is dried completely before being put back on beds or stored away for future use, as damp linen can encourage fresh bacterial growth.
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Cleaning your commercial washing machines with a sanitising solution between cycles will help reduce the risk of contamination from one wash cycle to another – especially after using cold washes.
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Use a high quality soluble laundry bag with each wash to reduce unnecessary contact with soiled laundry.
Protecting your staff while handling contaminated laundry
Ultimately, you never know whether used hotel towels or bedding is going to be contaminated, and it’s best to work on the assumption that it is. When handling contaminated laundry, therefore, your laundry staff and contractors should follow the DHSS guidelines HC (95)18 for the safe handling of contaminated laundry. All our Slik Pak laundry bags follow these guidelines, making compliance straightforward for you and your team.
Find out more
To find out more about our soluble laundry solutions for hotel laundries, please contact one of our experienced team today on 0161 524 7619, or click here to request a quote.
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