Clean Atlantic - Fall  2010
(click here for full magazine in Adobe pdf format)

ON THE COVER:   Clean Atlantic 2010
The Canadian Sanitation Supply Association (CSSA) will host Clean Atlantic on Sep. 29, 2010 at the Moncton Coliseum in New Brunswick. Clean Atlantic is the trade show and seminar program dedicated to the professionals who help keep Atlantic Canada clean.

With exhibitors from across Canada and the United States, the show will feature the latest products and systems that have been developed in response to the challenges you face today.  Read more...

Exhibitor Listing

Battling Bed Bugs: Old Foe, New Strategies
By Bill Melville, Quality Assurance Director, Orkin PCO Services
Think bed bugs are a bedtime myth like the boogeyman? Think again. Bed bugs are very real and they are on the rise in Canada. Though their name implies they are only found in beds, they actually hide in any type of furniture, behind picture frames and under baseboards as well. And they’re not just limited to hotels – these critters are actually found anywhere humans are, including multi-family residential buildings, hospitals, office buildings and even movie theatres.   Read more...

Improving Environmental Hygiene in ICUs to Decrease Multi-Drug-Resistant Bacterial Transmission
By Philip C. Carling, MD, Caritas-Carney Hospital, Boston University School of Medicine
The risk of acquiring hospital-associated infections has been a recognized problem for intensive care units (ICUs) since their use became widely established 20 years ago. The medical and economic toll of these infections has created a new urgency to implement enhanced management and prevention strategies. Improving hand hygiene and isolation practices have been shown to have had limited impact, according to recent studies. Conversely, there is a growing body of evidence and documentation that pathogens, such as methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant S. aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), Clostridium difficile, and Acinetobacter baumannii, are readily transmitted from environmental surfaces to hands, and from hands to vulnerable people.   Read more...

Private Rooms Reduce Risk of Hospital-Associated Infections
By Jim Gauthier, MLT, CIC, Providence Care, Kingston, Ont.
A study recently published in the American Journal of Infection Control (Hamel M, Zoutman D, O’Callaghan C. Exposure to hospital roommates as a risk factor for health care-associated infection Am J Infect Control 2010; 38:173-81) evaluated the association between hospital roommate exposures and the risk of hospital-associated infections (HAI).   Read more...

The Fundamentals of Green Carpet Care
By Mike Sawchuck, Vice President and General Manager, Enviro-Solutions
People in the professional cleaning industry tends to be very practical. Those who perform cleaning tasks want to know how to do it properly and to use the chemicals, tools and equipment that not only do the job at hand, but do it as effectively and efficiently as possible.   Read more...