OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — Since the COVID-19 outbreak, spraying down machines with disinfectant in between loads at "The Green Van" Dry Cleaning and Laundry is routine.
"We follow the CDC best practices, which have not changed," Derek Anderson, owner and CEO of The Green Van, said.
At least a dozen of Anderson's commercial clients are medical, dental and lab facilities.
"When we handle medical laundry, it has always come into us with the assumption that there are pathogens on it," Anderson said. "And that's our business."
In recent days, he has shared some advice with health care professionals.
"Scrubs are changed into in the medical facility. At the end of the day, they [are] changed out of in the medical facility, and then they are washed separately," Anderson said.
When it comes to killing pathogens off fabric, heating is key. A washer at the highest setting can reach up to 140 degrees. Meanwhile, a dryer at a medium setting can reach up to 160 degrees.
With sanitizing on everyone's mind, it has kept companies like City Wide Maintenance in Lenexa busy.
"We usually treat 20 to 30 businesses during the flu season, "Curt Admire, director of operations at City Wide Maintenance of Kansas City, said. "And we've always had one machine we've upgraded to four electrostatic units. And we're treating about six to eight businesses every single day."
An electrostatic unit uses a special chemical that gets into hard-to-reach places that a typical cleaner doesn't.
"It's a precautionary measure to show their employees, their guests, their staff that they're doing everything they can," Admire said.
And so far, this is clear:
"That there's so much unknown in the marketplace and everybody has fear of what's going to happen, both from the disease [and] economically," Anderson said.
