Floor cleaning

Floor cleaning is a major occupation throughout the world. The main job of most cleaners is to clean floors. The principal reasons for floor cleaning are: To prevent injuries due to tripping or slipping. Injuries due to slips and trips on level floors are a major cause of accidental injury or death. Bad practice in floor cleaning is itself a major cause of accidents. To beautify the floor. To remove stains, dirt, litter and obstructions. To remove grit and sand which scratch and wear down the surface. To remove allergens, in particular dust. To prevent wear to the surface (e.g. by using a floor wax or protective sealant). To make the environment sanitary (e.g. in kitchens). To reduce ingestion/inhalation rates of microplastics. To maintain an optimum traction (e.g. for dance floors). Reduce workload inbetween shifts (e.g. dedicated cleaning crew). The treatment needed for different types of floors is very different. Slipping is a common safety hazard for cleaning methods that involve water or other liquids, especially if the floor is left wet. Sawdust is used on some floors to absorb any liquids that fall rather than trying to prevent them being spilt. The sawdust is swept up and replaced each day. This was common in the past in pubs and is still used in some butchers and fishmongers. It used to be common to use tea leaves to collect dirt from carpets and remove odours. There are also a wide variety of floor cleaning machines available today such as floor buffers, automatic floor scrubbers and sweepers, and carpet extractors that can deep clean almost any type of hard floor or carpeted flooring surface in much less time than it would take using a traditional cleaning method. Different types of wood flooring may require completely different care depending on whether they are waxed, oiled or have a polyurethane coating. It is important to determine the type of finish of a wood floor and always treat it in the proper manner, for instance it is difficult to clear wood floor wax from a floor coated with polyurethane.