Correct glove use and associated hand hygiene are undoubtedly primary health and safety issues for all of those working right across the waste industries, and for those handling clinical and related wastes in particular.
Gloves should be fully impervious, resistant to sharps penetration where necessary, and constructed so as to prevent damage to hands through chafing, excess sweating, heat or penetration of solvents & other chemicals. Ideally, gloves would cover the wrists; though rarely used, gauntlets offer even better protection.
When gloves are removed, these should be placed in a suitable location for storage, and hands washed thoroughly. Blenkharn Environmental has undertaken many audits and delivered hand hygiene/safety tutorials to waste handlers. Common errors include:
- no gloves
- wrong gloves
- ill-fitting or worn gloves
- failure to remove gloves
- failure to wash hands
- failure to wash hands adequately
- lack of or mis-placed hand washing facilities
- hand rubs used with insufficient dosing or on heavily soiled hands
- handling gloves after removal and after hand washing
- stowage of gloves in inappropriate locations
The importance of removing gloves and stowing them properly before hand washing is exemplified by a recent report from Hong Kong (Lai JYF, Guo YP, Or PPL, Li Y. Comparison of hand contamination rates and environmental contamination levels between two different glove removal methods and distances. Amer J Infect Contr 2011; 39/2: 104-11. doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2010.06.007).
Though focusing on glove use and removal by healthcare professionals, these researchers identified extensive splash contamination in the area where users were standing when removing and discarding their gloves. This resulted in contamination of the outer surfaces of the lid and frame of waste sack holders and of hand basins.
Though the extent of splash may be different for latex or nitrile gloves used in the clinical environment and those used by waste handlers, the message is clear. Used gloves are likely to be heavily contaminated on their external surfaces. Removing those gloves may result in some local contamination. This is worsened if the gloves are handled after removal and hand washing, or placed for stowage in a location that should be kept clean, in a rest room or vehicle cab etc.