Improving Air Quality in the Workplace

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It goes without saying that air plays a big role in our daily lives, both at home and at work. So it’s no surprise that indoor air quality (IAQ) is a major concern for workers across the country. IAQ can significantly affect the health, comfort, and productivity of your workers, so it’s important to make sure that the air is clean and comfortable.

Although it’s rare for poor IAQ to cause serious health problems, it’s not uncommon for employees to perceive the air as dangerous or unhealthy when the quality is low. In this post, we’ll help you to further understand exactly what poor IAQ is and how to improve the quality of the air inside your facility.

What’s Good IAQ?

Since breathing is an automatic action we do without much thought, good IAQ goes relatively unnoticed. However, the moment that dust, pollen, foul odors, or other pollutants enter the air, it’s noticed almost immediately. However, contaminants aren’t the only things that can lower the air’s quality. Air temperature, humidity, and even stillness can attribute to its overall quality.

To achieve good IAQ in your building, you need to focus on the following criteria: ventilation, temperature, humidity, volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, cleaning, and maintenance.

What Are the Most Common IAQ Complaints?

Since most employers concentrate on providing a safe working environment, it should come as no surprise that the most common complaints concerning IAQ don’t involve pollutants but rather employee comfort. For instance, most complaints have to do with the temperature of the air being too hot or too cold. Following that is complaints about drafts or still air. The third most common complaints have to do with dry or humid air.

Serious health-related complaints, such as eye or throat irritation, dizziness, or nausea, are much rarer and typically hard to blame on the IAQ of the workplace unless the issues are persistent and felt by numerous employees. Sometimes, these symptoms can be brought on by allergies to mold or dust that may be present in the air.

What’s Causing My IAQ Problems?

To identify the cause of poor IAQ, you need to listen to the complaints. Still air can easily be improved by adding more ventilation. However, mold or mildew will need to be handled thoroughly by a professional cleaning team to ensure that the problem is resolved and possibly the inclusion of a contractor if this is a reoccurring problem due to some structural design issue.

So where exactly can you look to find the cause of your IAQ problems?

  • Tobacco smoke
  • Cleaning products
  • Dust
  • Malfunctioning HVAC unit
  • Printers or copy machines
  • Fragrances and cosmetics
  • Pesticides

While most buildings will likely have a little bit of all these, they only really become a problem when levels accumulate faster than they can be ventilated.

How to Solve and Prevent Poor IAQ

Once you understand the source of your building’s poor IAQ, it’s fairly easy to correct the air quality problem. To prevent future instances, like in the case of mold or mildew, you can use materials around the office that are resistant to these factors. High-density polyethylene (HDPE), for example, is naturally resistant to mold, mildew, and bacteria. Plus, it has no VOC emissions, making it perfect for any workplace that wishes to improve the overall IAQ.

Learn How HDPE Can Improve IAQ
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How to Improve Your Facility’s Locker Room Ventilation

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There is an art to creating a great fitness center. In addition to providing the latest equipment, friendly knowledgeable trainers, clean locker rooms, and lots of hot water, your locker room needs to breathe.

Unfortunately many locker room ventilation systems are improperly designed, leading to issues such as high humidity, mold, corrosion, nasty odors, and unhappy members. On the other hand, a well-designed ventilation system means happier members, reduced maintenance, and increased sales.

Locker rooms are constantly bombarded with moisture from members who come in perspiring after workouts; from the humidity released when they shower; and by the moisture released in steam and sauna areas. That’s why it is critical to provide effective dehumidification combined with an exhaust system designed to capture and exhaust large quantities of moist air out of the building. If the excess moisture in the locker room is not properly vented, it will affect lockers, benches and other assets, and migrate to other areas of the facility.

Whether you are building a new facility or renovating an existing locker room, make sure your architect or engineer is providing an effective ventilation system that exhausts moisture out of the building as required by the International Building Codes. Some of the ventilation technologies currently being used for fitness facilities, include:

  • Energy Star-rated products, including solar-powered fans and other eco-friendly technologies,
  • Systems which reduce the energy required for drying and dehumidification, such as liquid desiccant technology,
  • Bi-polar ionization air-purification systems, to ventilate and also break down odors
  • And equipment that measures volatile organic compounds and particulates

 

Other Locker Room Considerations

In addition to proper ventilation, also consider the following when designing your locker room.

  • Using water-sealed ceiling tiles and ceramic floor tiles
  • Installing CO2 sensors for ventilation control
  • Selecting lockers that will not absorb moisture, and that will not corrode or delaminate in a high-moisture environment

 

Hunter Green Tufftec Lockers

Hunter Green Tufftec Lockers

Specify Tufftec Lockers®

Locker rooms – and the lockers in them – can be breeding grounds for mold and bacteria. Manufactured from solid HDPE, Tufftec Lockers® stand up to the many challenges of the locker room environment. Moisture is never an issue. Tufftec Lockers® are impermeable to moisture, resistant to mold and mildew, and will never rust, corrode, or delaminate. They are also naturally bacteria resistant and will not support the growth of bacteria, including MRSA. Easy to clean, and impact and dent resistant, Tufftec Lockers® will preserve their good looks for years to come. And most importantly, your investment is backed by the best warranty in the industry.

Selecting Scranton Products Tufftec Lockers® for your facility is a sound investment that will help keep your locker room odor-free, reduce your maintenance sots, and keep your members happy for many years to come.

To find out more about Tufftec Lockers® and our customizable locker solutions, please click on the link below.

Learn More About Tufftec Lockers
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Water Conservation Challenges & Strategies for Maintenance Managers

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One of the biggest issues plaguing commercial and institutional facilities today is water waste. Whether it’s due to old pipes, leaks, or faucets that aren’t turned off, maintenance managers are desperate for solutions that can help them to keep the water bill down and improve their building’s water efficiency.

In this post, we take a closer look at a few water conservation challenges as well as strategies for maintenance managers.

Finding Opportunities for Water Conservation

One of the initial water conservation challenges that maintenance managers face is pinpointing where to focus their efforts and where opportunities lie. The first step, of course, is to gather some benchmark data. Find out how much water your building uses every day, month, quarter, or year, whatever number makes the most sense for your project and company.

Next, you want to focus on the water use of individual fixtures. For example, how many gallons of water are used with each flush of a toilet in your building? How many gallons are those toilets using each day/month/quarter/year? Gather as much information as possible.

Consider the following areas:

  • Toilets
  • Urinals
  • Showers
  • Sprinklers
  • Irrigation systems
  • Sinks/faucets
  • Pipes and plumping

Once you can identify where your building is using the most water, you’ll be able to target those areas first for the biggest benefit. Then you can concentrate on areas that use smaller amounts of water.

[READ MORE: How to Cut Energy Costs in Your Facility]

How to Get Upper Management to Buy-In

Although you might see the benefit of investing in water conservation, it’s not always easy to get the board to agree. It’s common for maintenance managers and their teams to spend months, if not years, proposing water conservation tactics before receiving final approval. So how can you help to speed up the process?

Step one is to do your homework. Make sure that you have all data on current consumption rates as we discussed in the previous section. Then clearly spell out what the initial investment will be for all necessary replacement fixtures, repairs, or updates and pair it with a total return on investment or total savings.

By having these numbers ready, you’ll be able to clearly explain to anyone that needs to give approval how much the project will cost, how long it will take before that cost is recouped, and how much the company or building will save after those costs are returned.

[READ MORE: Identifying and Resolving Energy Inefficiencies in Your Building]

Recycling Water

In areas where collecting storm water is possible, this might be an opportunity to reduce your water expense without necessarily reducing consumption. Collected rain water can be great for use in irrigation or flushing toilets. Consider using the roof of your building for collection and storing the water in tanks for later use. Though this method won’t work in every situation (especially if your building has a small roof), it’s certainly something worth looking into.

Also, be sure to check with local ordinances since, in some parts of the world, it’s illegal to catch rainwater in large quantities.

For more information on how you can make your facility eco-friendlier, check out our free eBook Sustainable Building Products. This helpful resource will teach you about using recyclable materials, how to combat harmful air pollutants indoors, Scranton Products’ environmentally friendly products, and more!

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5 Tips to Create a Sophisticated Commercial Bathroom Experience

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There are several ways that you can make the commercial bathroom experience pleasant and enjoyable, rather than routine and unimpressive. As a facility manager, you’ll want to curate a sophisticated space for your occupants when they need to visit the restroom. Most commercial bathrooms are uninspiring and cookie-cutter, without any design implementations to make occupants reflect on how nice or stylish the facilities are. Luckily, there are a few ways to make your commercial bathroom more enjoyable through different designs and materials.

Here are five tips to create a sophisticated commercial bathroom experience for your occupants to enjoy.

Maximizing the Space for Your Commercial Bathroom

Even if you have the space and measurements plotted for the bathroom in your facility, you can still utilize some commercial bathroom design to amplify the space, making it a little more open and cozy. No one likes going to a cramped bathroom, so making use of your space is important. Luckily, you don’t have to scrap your original plan to make use of the space.

Using mirrors can help make your commercial bathroom seem a bit larger and more comfortable. Using a lot of mirrors will help amplify the space and by a slight optical illusion, your bathroom will seem bigger. Not only do mirrors take up very little space, but occupants will have plenty of opportunities to check their appearance before continuing their day.

Use Softer Colors and Proper Lighting

Most commercial restrooms have an unnatural feel to them, mainly because of their lack of character and the harsh lights. You can combat this, and make a more comfortable experience for your occupants, by utilizing softer colors as opposed to the bright and bland white. To add to this experience of warming up the room, you should use softer lights rather than the factory-esque fluorescent lights. Not only is it less harsh on the eyes, but it will give the restroom a more inviting feel.

Aria Partitions in Sandcastle Color

Increase the Privacy

The key to occupants’ comfort in a public restroom is adequate privacy. This means utilizing materials to eliminate sightlines and design flaws. When it’s time to pick out the stalls, be sure to find ones that can help you decrease the exterior visuals. HDPE plastic partitions like Hiny Hider Partitions® and Eclipse Partitions® will help you reduce the sightlines, and they even have hidden hardware that will simply add to the aesthetics.

Preventing Mold from Ruining the Experience

Of the negative criticisms that occupants have of commercial bathrooms, smell ranks pretty high on the list. There’s nothing as off-putting as unpleasant smells emanating from your restrooms. In order to kill the odors where they stand, you’ll need to utilize materials to help counteract mold growth. Mold grows, and thrives, in humid and moist environments, which make your restroom the perfect breeding ground.

Mold tends to find its way into the core of common partition materials, which end up resulting in awful smells and a pricey replacement. But utilizing materials like HDPE plastic can help you prevent mold. HDPE is a solid plastic that can resist mold growth and can go a long distance in keeping your restroom smelling fresh and inviting.

Keeping the Restroom Clean

It’s no secret that your commercial restroom needs to be cleaned daily, but there are ways to ensure that it stays fresh for the occupants who will use it. You learned that HDPE plastic partitions and antibacterial bathroom hardware can help prevent mold growth, but it’s also beneficial to know that this material is also low-maintenance and easy to clean. Utilizing materials like this not only helps keep the facilities clean, but you won’t have to hold up the restroom flow by blocking it off during maintenance. The cleanup will be quick, easy, and efficient.

Want to learn more tips and tricks on how to make the commercial restroom experience more sophisticated and inviting? Check out our free eBook, Restroom Design for Commercial Facilities, from your friends at Scranton Products.

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Color Psychology: Classroom Colors Conducive to Learning

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For years, scientists have studied the effects of various colors on the human mood, which is known as color psychology. Results have shown that different shades or hues have strikingly different effects, and specific classroom colors are more conducive to learning. Blue, for example, is soothing and calming, while red encourages excitement. So it’s important to consider color choice when decorating your classroom.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at color psychology, how color can alter the mood of your classroom, and review some best practices that can help you to heighten creativity and improve focus.

Understanding the Effects of Colors

As we mentioned above, each color has a particular effect on mood. Red can create a sense of excitement and increase alertness. It also increases appetite and creativity. However, for individuals who suffer from anxiety, red can also be extremely upsetting. Blue, on the other hand, can suppress appetite, lower temperature, and create a calming environment.

Use the list below to see what effects certain colors can have:

  • Yellow: Increases creativity and attention and instills a general feeling of positivity
  • Orange: Can improve alertness
  • Green: Peaceful and calm
  • Purple: Peaceful and calm
  • Brown: Can reduce feelings of fatigue and improve feelings of relaxation or make students feel more secure
  • Off-White: Improves attention and instills feelings of positivity
  • Red: Inspires alertness, excitement and creativity

Adjusting Colors in a Preschool Classroom to Improve Attention, Creativity or Rest

Within a preschool setting, color adjusting the room can help with many activities and tasks when working with young children who need direction, structure or calming. For instance, wearing an off-white shirt can help to improve their attention span, while using splashes of red around the art station can increase creativity and excitement. Meanwhile, quiet areas for naptime should be decorated with shades of green, purple, or blue to promote rest and a sense of peace and calmness within the room.

Inspiring Learning with Youth and Adults

Similar to how color can be used in classrooms for young children and infants, teachers who work with youth and adults can strategically decorate their classrooms to improve attention, creativity, and even feelings of security. If you spend most of your time lecturing and want students to be alert so they can take thorough notes, consider adding orange, off-white, or red to the room.

If your class involves hands-on work where students are asked to create or solve complex problems, then using colors like red or yellow can help to facilitate creativity.

Whatever your lesson plan involves, color can be used to instill learning and improve student performance. Keep in mind what effects colors have on mood in the classroom and plan your classroom decorating all colors and decorating carefully.

Did you know that classroom design can impact students’ attitudes and even the way they retain information?

To learn more, read our article, New Research Shows Positive Connection Between Classroom Design and Learning.

Scranton Products, a leading lockers manufacturer, manufactures low maintenance, aesthetically pleasing and durable lockers for school facilities. Learn more about Duralife school lockers, ideal for elementary, middle school and high school facilities.

 

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Going Green in the Bathroom: 6 Ways to Keep Your Facility Restrooms Sustainable

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An environmentally friendly restroom provides major benefits for facility managers as well as patrons. With a sustainable restroom, maintenance costs become much cheaper, materials are more sanitary, and you work to support a healthier environment by reducing industrial waste.

In this day and age, an environmentally friendly approach can go a long way in a facility’s restroom, and we’re here to show you how. Read on as Scranton Products teaches you six ways to keep your facility restrooms sustainable.

1. Eliminate Painting

Repainting the materials in your restroom releases a variety of VOC emissions. This harms the air quality of your restroom, which will affect the people who use it. Partitions, vanities, and other restroom products that don’t require repainting will help your restroom stay sustainable.

2. Clean Smart

Various commercial cleaners have a significant number of chemicals in them. From the production of these chemicals to the application of them on your products, they don’t promote clean air quality inside and out.

Make sure that your restrooms can be steam cleaned or power washed for an environmentally friendly approach to restroom sanitizing.

3. Germ Resistant

Restroom materials that are naturally germ-resistant provide a major service for facility bathrooms. Mold, mildew, fungus, and bacteria occur in restrooms because of the high level of moisture and humidity. This also harms the air quality and creates an unsanitary place for your patrons. Germ-resistant materials are a must for supporting sustainability in your restroom.

4. Built from Recycled Material

When facility managers with recycled material, they do a serious service to our environment. With recycled materials, you reduce the amount of industrial waste and energy that goes into the building process.

5. Recyclable Material

When you use recyclable material for your restroom partitions, you also work to reduce industrial waste. Years after your materials are constructed to build your facility’s restroom, they can be reused and repurposed for another project. Check to see if your restroom material is recyclable.

6. Don’t Build with Added Formaldehyde Resins

While many bathroom materials are built with added urea-formaldehyde resins, there are significant drawbacks and health concerns that negatively affect the environment of your restroom. By negatively affecting the air quality, urea-formaldehyde resins increase the chance of respiratory infection or cancer when the chemicals are released into the air. For a more sustainable environment, choose a different material for your bathrooms.

What Material Covers All of These Sustainable Practices?

The answer is simple: HDPE plastic.

HDPE plastic bathroom materials are built with a homogenous color throughout so they won’t require repainting and can resist mold and mildew. They can be steamed cleaned or power washed, are built from recycled material, and can be recycled themselves. And, most importantly, they’re free of any urea-formaldehyde resins.

You can learn more about how to build an environmentally friendly restroom when you find out where you can buy Scranton Products’ HDPE materials near you.


Sustainable Building Products

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5 Tasks School Facility Managers Hate: So Why Not Get Rid of Them?

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As a facility manager in charge of an entire school, there are probably a bunch of tasks that you’re not a fan of. In fact, you may even loathe them, so why not find a way to get rid of them? One of the most common tasks that has caused considerable dislike is routine locker maintenance. Given the number of lockers in your school, and the variety of issues that can occur with them, facility managers simply hate the meticulous nature of maintaining them. However, because it’s a school, you can’t simply get rid of the lockers and have barren hallways. Students need storage compartments for their books and supplies, but there has to be a better alternative that can reduce your workload.

The 5 Tasks of Locker Maintenance That Facility Managers Despise

  • Painting. Giving all of your lockers a fresh coat of paint is never fun. Sometimes, though, there are no other options. Whether the exterior is chipping, or there’s considerable wear and tear, you can’t get away with painting just one locker. Still, while you’re carefully brushing the paint on, you may also dislike the fact that it’s filling your school with harmful VOC emissions.
  • Graffiti Removal. It’s hard not to take graffiti personally since it’s you that has to clean it off the locker. This requires more repainting, which simply adds to the frustration because you know it can, and probably will, happen again.
  • Removing Rust. Facility managers hate rust removal because it’s so tedious. Whether you’re using vinegar or baking soda, endlessly scrubbing one specific spot on a locker is an easy way to wear your wrist out, let alone drive you crazy.
  • Meticulous Cleaning. In order to prevent signs of rust, unsightly stains, or dust, the lockers require significant cleaning. Power washing makes the process a lot easier, but even that results in considerable cleanup, and you have to wait until students are out of the building.
  • Replacing Lockers. When they can’t take any more, lockers need to be replaced. They get slammed shut every day and they’re exposed to the elements. However, replacing them can result in high costs and painstaking installation.

Getting Rid of These Menial Tasks

If you’ve always fantasized about ways to rid yourself of these meticulous, dull, yet important tasks, there are actually ways to get around them while still having viable lockers and storage compartments for students. HDPE plastic has been introduced to schools across the country, and has met with positive results among students and facility managers. These lockers have successfully cut down on routine maintenance. HDPE is a solid plastic, so it has a durable structure that’s actually resistant to impacts, scratches, and rust. When there’s graffiti present, you don’t have to open a fresh can of paint. The graffiti can simply be wiped off the locker without affecting the locker’s homogenous color. You’ll save time and money on maintenance with HDPE lockers. They’ll provide the necessary storage for students while ridding your day of those pesky tasks. Finding ways to cut your maintenance costs is great, but finding a way to eliminate the task altogether is every facility manager’s dream. Implementing HDPE plastic into your school will reduce the time and money that goes into your school’s maintenance. That way you’ll have a long lasting material that doesn’t require any frustrating or meticulous maintenance, allowing you to use your time towards more important and pressing tasks in your school. Want to learn more about HDPE lockers and the benefits of choosing them for your school? Download this eBook, The Ultimate Guide to HDPE Plastic Lockers, from your friends at Scranton Products.

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Why Should I Use HDPE Plastic Materials?

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When choosing materials for your next project, you certainly have plenty of options. Since the 1950s, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) has soared in popularity in the US, although it first started in the UK about two decades earlier. Now it’s one of the most widely used types of plastic available.

But what exactly is it and why should you consider using HDPE in your next project? Read below to find out.

What Is HDPE?

HDPE is made by stringing together ethylene molecules, hence the name polyethylene. The ethylene molecules come primarily from US natural gas resources, and the resulting plastic is as versatile as it is durable, being used in a variety of applications.

One reason contractors, builders, and facility supervisors prefer HDPE over other materials is because it’s lightweight while also managing to be extremely strong. It’s also resistant to impact and damage. Bump into a locker made from HDPE and it won’t dent. Nor will it rot or grow mold as wood or other materials might, making HDPE plastics perfect for use where moisture is common, such as a commercial bathroom.

HDPE Is Environmentally Conscious

HDPE offers a relatively low environmental impact and substantial improvements to the indoor air quality both initially and in the long run.

In addition, HDPE materials from Scranton Products are GREENGUARD Gold Certified. This exclusive certification features extremely strict criteria and takes into account certain safety factors for sensitive individuals, making Scranton Products’ HDPE brands perfectly suitable for use in healthcare facilities and schools.

Scranton Products brands are made from recycled materials and are 100% recyclable themselves. Plus the plastic is solid colored throughout. That means no volatile organic compound emissions inside your facility, no chipping, and no need to repaint.

Lower Long-Term Costs

One of the biggest problems facing building officials is the cost to maintain their facilities. In this respect, HDPE holds a significant advantage over other common building materials, such as metal.

Take a locker, for example. Metal lockers may have a lower initial cost than lockers made from HDPE, but the cost of maintaining metal can surpass that of HDPE over time. When you factor in the cost of painting, cleaning, and other maintenance, HDPE lockers are less expensive than their metal counterparts.

That’s because HDPE is resistant to dents, germs, rust, corrosion, and even graffiti. Therefore, it requires minimal care to stay in good working condition. Not only that, but in the case of lockers, HDPE is significantly more effective at noise reduction than traditional metal lockers. In fact, HDPE lockers have been proven to be three times quieter than metal, making them perfect for use in schools and other shared areas.

If you’d like to learn more about HDPE or any of the brands offered by Scranton Products, contact us today.

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Reclaiming Privacy in Bathrooms through New Partitions

Bathroom privacy is a crucial element to the experience of using a public or commercial bathroom. This is especially true if the restroom serves multiple occupants at a time. Given the close quarters, it’s important to strive for absolute privacy with your facility’s restroom. One way that you can improve the privacy in your restrooms is through new bathroom partitions that offer more comfort and security to the occupants.

The Problem with Your Current Toilet Partitions

Restroom partitions serve a very simple but important purpose: privacy. They divide each toilet to provide a safe and confidential experience for each individual. However, some partitions lack the amount of privacy that one would like while going to the bathroom.

The main drawbacks to toilet partitions are their imperfections. There are design flaws like the door hinges, which lock and secure the stall, but they leave a line of sight that can make any occupant feel uncomfortable or exposed. There’s also a noticeable lack of bathroom privacy with the exposed bottom, which doesn’t hide an occupant’s feet. The top of the partitions also leave room for exposure and discomfort, especially if there’s a taller-than-average occupant in the next stall.

How to Improve the Privacy in Your Facility’s Restroom

There are a few ways that you can make the experience of going to the bathroom a little more comfortable for the occupants. However, the best way is by installing new partitions that offer more security and privacy, as well as customizable options to reduce any exposed areas or sightlines. You’ll also want to consider using strong and durable plastics to ensure that these new partitions will last.

The Types of Partitions that Can Improve Bathroom Privacy

HDPE plastic is one of the best materials that you can use for partitions in your facility’s restroom. Not only is this material durable and impact resistant, but it can actually withstand the moisture and humidity that’s prevalent in bathrooms, which leads to mold growth and the spread of bacteria. These sustainable and recyclable partitions are also guaranteed to last up to 25 years and require little maintenance.

Hiny Hiders® Partitions: Hiny Hiders® Partitions are a modern take on the classic stall design, but with a few new implementations to ensure total privacy. These doors can feature an optional shiplap cut edge that can ensure that the gap between the door and the frame is eliminated.

Eclipse Partitions®: Eclipse Partitions® offer a sleek and contemporary design that uses hidden hardware and handles with occupancy indicators that increased the privacy of the commercial bathroom experience.

Aria Partitions®: Aria Partitions® offer higher privacy by reducing sightlines, as well as floor and ceiling gaps to deliver a comfortable and secure experience. These enclosed toilet partitions can be customized to fit any design pattern or space in your facility.

Improving the privacy in your facility’s restroom is important for providing a safe, comfortable, and secure atmosphere to the occupants.

Want to learn more about these HDPE plastic partitions? Check out this blog post, HDPE Partitions Styles & Advantages, from your friends at Scranton Products.

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How Your Hospital Locker Rooms Could Be a Breeding Ground for Bacteria

Any medical official can tell you that MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), simply known as infections that are resistant to antibiotics, can be extremely serious. That’s why it’s important to protect your hospital’s locker rooms from essentially becoming a Petri dish for this and other harmful bacteria.

However, like most things in life, there’s a right way and a wrong way to make sure that your staff and patients are protected.

Keeping Hospital Locker Rooms Bacteria-Free

Preventing hospital infections starts with selecting the right materials for both patient and staff facilities, including locker rooms.

locker checklist

More importantly, these cleaning products can be harmful to the cleaning staff, who may be accidently overexposing themselves to fumes and corrosive liquids. For these reasons, it’s important to use cleaning products only as directed or to consider alternative options.

One way to keep your hospital locker rooms free of bacteria is to use bacteria-resistant materials like HDPE, or high-density polyethylene.

Bacteria-Resistant Locker Rooms

HDPE is a heavy-duty plastic material that can be manufactured into lockers, shower stalls, bathroom partitions, and more. This durable material is naturally resistant to bacteria and incredibly easy to clean. Since they have color throughout and aren’t painted, cleaning staff can power wash HDPE surfaces without fear of causing damage.

Just how resistant to germs are HDPE materials? According to independent tests, 98.4% of MRSA bacteria on HDPE surfaces died within just 24 hours without the use of any cleaning products – a significant advantage when planning facilities with minimizing hospital infections in mind.

In addition to limiting the growth of bacteria, HDPE is resistant to dents, scratches, rust, and graffiti. These qualities make it ideal for use in medical facilities as well as schools, government buildings, and more.

HDPE in the Real World

Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, IL, is familiar with the benefits of HDPE materials, having chosen them for use in the clinical area and nurse’s lounge. To maintain a healthy and safe environment, 500 HDPE lockers was installed to replace the previous metal ones.

“The new lockers are much more hygienic than metal because bacteria cannot live on the surface for very long,” said Mary Grimm, RN, nurse manager for maternal child services at the hospital.

Read the full Little Company of Mary Hospital Case Study for more information about their experience with HDPE materials.  If you’d like to know how you can use antibacterial restroom hardware, HDPE lockers, shower stalls, and partitions in your hospital locker room, contact us at Scranton Products today.

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