An Evaluation of Hospital Cleaning Regimes—Microbiological Evaluation and LCA Analysis after Traditional and Sustainable/Green Procedures

Abstract

The development of sustainable processes has a significant role in balancing social productivity demands, environmental protection, and natural resources. The control of microbial contamination has so far been concentrated on the use of chemical-based sanitation procedures, which may have various limitations, as testified by the persistence of contamination itself, by the growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of hospital microbes, and by chemical-related pollution. This communication aims to present a comparative analysis between the use of traditional and green sanitation products and processes in hospital environments. The sampling campaign was conducted in a day hospital ward of a general hospital (Imola, Santa Maria della Scaletta Hospital). Each sample comes from a specific surface, furniture or sanitary, and was taken using RODAC contact plates and swabs with a neutralizing agent in order to standardize the result of the microbiological evaluation. Sampling occurred before and after traditional and green cleaning procedures. The green experimental protocol using 100% natural and biodegradable products in sanitization procedures of hospital areas at a medium-high health risk was found to be a technique of relevant interest. From CAM requirements, the green protocol must give equal or better results than the traditional protocol. It can be concluded that the green experimental system meets this criterion and has shown better antimicrobial activity performance than the traditional system; all findings are in an acceptable state of sanitation, with no evidence of pathogenic micro-organisms specified in the guideline.