Biohazard remediation; also known as crime scene cleanup

5/19/2021 (Permalink)

SERVPRO knows biohazard cleanup can be a stressful and demanding process that requires trained professionals to work long hours and be subjected to a range of catastrophic circumstances.  Biohazard cleanup is NOT the same as a standard cleaning company or janitorial service. Crime scene cleanup is a term applied to forensic cleanup of blood, bodily fluids, and other potentially infectious materials.  It is also referred to as biohazard remediation because crime scenes are only a portion of the situations in which biohazard cleaning is needed. SERVPRO provides biohazard remediation and recovery services for many biohazard situations.  These include the following:

• Coronavirus - viral pathogen.
• Sewage backups.
• Crime scene cleanup.
• Natural death cleanup.
• Suicide cleanup.
• Homicide cleanup.
• Accident cleanup.
• Blood cleanup.
• Hoarding scenes.

The job of a biohazard cleaner is to thoroughly clean, sanitize, disinfect, and deodorize the site where a crime, natural death, suicide, homicide, trauma, or accident occurred.  It is important to understand each service offered and the differences between them:

• Cleaning removes food and other types of soil from a surface such as a countertop or a plate. 
• Sanitizing reduces the number of pathogens on that clean surface to safe levels.  It is meant to reduce, not kill, the occurrence and growth of bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
• Disinfecting a surface will “kill” the microscopic organisms.
• Sterilizing is the process of making something free from bacteria or other living microorganisms.
• Deodorizing is to remove or conceal an unpleasant smell.

Cleaning alone will always positively contribute to the health of occupants because allergens (a substance that causes an allergic reaction) and microorganisms (a microscopic organism, especially a bacterium, virus, or fungus) are removed from surfaces.  There is still a risk of cross-contamination because the solutions and the cleaning tools used could be spreading disease.

Sanitizing reduces the number of bacteria present by 99.9 percent but it does nothing about viruses and fungus.  Sanitizing is better than cleaning alone, however, the reduction of pathogen populations on environmental surfaces is exponentially better when you disinfect.

Disinfecting is the process of killing (inactivating) harmful and objectionable bacteria, and other microorganisms (pathogenic) by various agents such as chemicals, heat, ultraviolet light, ultrasonic waves, or radiation. Disinfection is usually considered a 99+% kill compared to sterilization that generally attains 100% kill.

Sterilizing is the removal of 100% of the organisms.