The First Facility Management Blog

The Water Environment Federation (WEF) will join with the International Water Association (IWA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and other partnering organizations to celebrate World Water Monitoring Day™ 2008 on Thursday, September 18 at Hains Point Park in Washington, DC. This year’s program will feature a special hand washing campaign to recognize the United Nations’ “International Year of Sanitation.”

World Water Monitoring Day (WWMD) is an international outreach program that builds public awareness and involvement in protecting water resources around the world. Held annually between September 18 and October 18, the program engages communities in monitoring the condition of local rivers, streams, estuaries, and other waterbodies.

Worldwide participation is expected to surpass last year, when more than 46,000 people tested water quality in 43 countries. The program coordinators, WEF and IWA, plan to expand participation to one million people in 100 countries by 2012.

Working in partnership with Procter & Gamble, an estimated 12,000 water monitoring kits, including bars of biodegradable, environmentally friendly soap and a handwashing fact sheet, will be distributed to people in more than 50 countries as part of the “Wash Your Hands, Save a Life” campaign. This campaign provides an opportunity to offer a key message about basic hygiene to people around the world. Particularly in countries where adequate sanitation systems and hygiene knowledge are lacking, this message can save lives.

Following brief opening remarks and safety demonstration, a diverse group of attendees will conduct hands-on testing of both the Anacostia River and Potomac River for water quality indicators including dissolved oxygen, acidity, temperature, and turbidity (clarity). Results are reported online, tabulated, and presented in a year-end report that documents program participation. Event speakers include: Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) (invited); Benjamin Grumbles, Assistant Administrator for Water, U.S. EPA (invited); WEF President Adam Zabinski; Ase Johannessen, Development Programme Officer for IWA; Eddy Perez, Senior Sanitation Specialist for World Bank D.C.; and Jerry Johnson, General Manager of the DC Water and Sewer Authority.

In addition to WEF, IWA, EPA and USGS, participating organizations include PerkinElmer Instruments, Smithfield Foods, CH2M HILL, ITT Corporation, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Forest Service, Naturalist Audubon Society, Girl Scouts of the Nation’s Capital, Earth Day Network, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the National Environmental Education Foundation, and many more.

According to a study conducted last September, one third of the men who use public rest rooms don’t wash their hands before leaving. Women were more hygienically conscientious, with only 12% failing to wash after using the facilities.

These results are contrary to a Harris Interactive Study, where 92% of participants claimed to wash after using the rest room. “But researchers for the American Society for Microbiology found that only 77% actually do, when it comes to public restrooms. That’s a 6% decline from a similar study in 2005.” (Associated Press, 9/17/2007.)

Hand washing is widely believed to be one of the most effective ways to combat against the spread of infectious diseases. And high traffic public rest rooms are thought to be virtual germ incubators.

The findings of the survey, co-sponsored by the Soap and Detergent Association, were released to a meeting of infectious disease scientists on Monday, September 17, 2007. The findings were based on a study of 6,000 participants in four large cities around the country.

Details from the study (from the Associated Press, 9/17/07):
• Atlanta’s Turner Field baseball stadium had the biggest hand washing gender gap. Only 57% of guys there washed up, compared to 95% of women.

• New York was Second City to Chicago in cleanliness. In rest rooms at the Windy City’s Shedd Aquarium and Museum of Science and Industry, 81% of men and women combined washed their hands, compared to 79% at the Big Apple’s Penn and Grand Central train stations.

• At San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal Farmers Market, 62.5% of men lathered up. Women did better, with 84%.

Thanks to TFM “Tricks of the Trade” Columnist Jim Elledge for providing this story.

As hospital infection rates continue to increase sharply, clinicians are faced with the ongoing challenge of quickly determining the presence or absence of a wide array of pathogens. As a result, clinical laboratories face growing pressure to culture a variety of organisms from patient specimens quickly and reliably. Correctly diagnosing and safeguarding patient health requires accurate, timely isolation and identification of anaerobic bacteria and related organisms.

A new, free white paper from Spiral Biotech, “Effectively Isolating Anaerobic Bacteria,” discusses anaerobic chambers and gas bags as the traditional applications used in the isolation and testing of anaerobic bacteria and related organisms as well as explores a third, newer technology – the Anoxomat anaerobic system.

The paper details comparative studies demonstrating the benefits of the use of the Anoxomat anaerobic system versus anaerobic chambers and gas bags in clinical laboratories in terms of saving consumables, costs, time, and effort for clinical laboratory management and their staff.

The white paper can be downloaded here.AnoxomatWhitePaper.pdf