Looking for advice on workwear home clean guidelines

my congrats to saferpak for this excellent forum. novices like myself welcome it.

question to ask

are there any updates on the homewash for overalls as dicussed last year
I have been told you can make up a declaration on do's and don't s and employee's can sign it . Has anybody else been able to do this , and been accepted . I know this is a grey area with other companies on this subject.
your comments will be appreciated.

Hello Ruby, welcome to the forums and thanks for your kind words.

Self-care is permitted for Category A and although there are probably many who are doing it I have to admit I don't know anyone who is.

If you want to go down this route the Standard requires 'appropriate guidelines' and 'adequate controls', so let's look at the requirements sensibly:

Guidelines:

- written
- communicated to employees, perhaps signed for
- should include instructions on how and how often to wash
- like you say a list of do's and don'ts

Controls:

The only way I can think of controlling self-care is to check the state of the overalls your people are wearing (Are they visibly clean? How do they smell?). Weekly, daily check I don't know and its not a task I'd relish - perhaps trained sniffer dogs could be the answer.

In my experience the state some overalls come back from so called ‘professional' laundry companies it would probably be just as safe to wash them in the river and whack them on a rock.

Hopefully you will get an answer or two from members who have implemented a successful self-care system.

I'm sure this hasn't helped at all.

Regards,
Simon

Simon

A bit more information on this subject.
Im surprised there hasn't been any response except yourself.
anyway

Ive been asking other QA managers about this subject and there seems to be a variance on what is acceptable.

1. home clean cat A
2. half /half cat B
3. full contract wash cat B
4. in house laundery service cat B
5. contract service but don't use it (Take wear home ) cat B

contract wash companies are quite adament that workwear has to be cleaned at a certain temp , which a homewash can't achieve.
I ask the question ,is this stated in the standard.? the response is nil

as a small company ,an open chequebook is not available to my budget as Im sure other companies are in the same boat.
our contract to date is reaching nearly £7000
so Im looking for cheaper solutions .

I get the impression that the auditor has the final say unless you can jusify your
system and controls.

food for your thoughts
one company( cat B )will allow its personnel to wear company shorts .( are hairy legs hygienic )

Quote from a fellow manager

the standard is written in black & white ,implement it as that .
There are no grey areas unless you make them up as you go along.
Regards

Ruby

As we have said if you are category A you may ‘home wash' and this would save a lot of money, however it would need to be tightly managed by you to ensure that work clothing remains fit for purpose. Ultimately your auditor will determine whether the system and controls you have in place are adequate.

At the end of the day you will have to ask yourself the question do I want to pay more money for less hassle or pay less money and undoubtedly have more hassle. It is a cost V's benefit analysis that you will need to carry out for your particular situation and the decision is yours.

Quote from a fellow manager

the standard is written in black & white ,implement it as that .
There are no grey areas unless you make them up as you go along.
Regards

I'm not so sure about that Ruby. In my experience what is written in black & white in Standards often doesn't make quite enough sense to be definite and therefore is open to interpretation. The standard poses the questions but unfortunately does not provide all of the answers. Maybe we should create a guidance document; perhaps we already have it with this forum. As we say in England 'there's more than one way to skin a cat.'

A question to the foodies out there - if your packaging supplier operated a self-care laundry system what controls would they need for you to feel comfortable?

Regards,
Simon

Hi Ruby / Simon

There was once a post dedicated to this very subject.....

(Dont know whether I can post links, but Simon will put it right if I get it wrong!!)

http://www.saferpak....2026

As a member of the foodie department, if your guidelines include reference to post wash contamination control (don't let the cat sit on the clean washing!), and a point about load mixing (don't wash with the abatoir aprons and dirty nappies!), I would be OK with self care for secondary / tertiary packaging manufacturers, though the company preference would be for a contracted laundry for primary (food contact) packaging manufacturers.

Simon - re: your river / rock whacking laundry..... have you audited them?

Simon - re: your river / rock whacking laundry..... have you audited them?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course - the rocks were all 1 metre square +/- a couple of pebbles.

Thanks for the link - my memory doesnt work too good.

Regards,
Simon