How Do Other Facilities Handle Dirty Linens?

Question: Currently our dirty linen is transported in bags, separate from trash, to the Housekeeping Dirty Sort Room.  This linen is then loaded into linen transport cart for our linen reprocessing vendor to pickup.  We would like to have housekeeping pickup the dirty linen and trash at the same time either in the same bin (this would be preferred), or in a bin that has separate compartments that we would have to purchase.  How do other facilities handle this?  Other thoughts on how hospitals have reduced the time it takes to pick-up of dirty items while adhering to JACHO and OSHA standards?
- William Cook. Director of Material Management

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Average Number of Pounds in Hotel Room

 Question: What Is the Average Number of Pounds Used Per Hotel Room? Thanks,
- Cherie Frey of Frey Laundry Services

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Soiled weight versus Clean weight

Question: What is a good industry standard for soiled weight vs. clean weight in terms of percentage of poundage higher as soiled. I've been told as low as 6% and as high as 10 - 11%  I work in a health care setting so what would be the situations that might make this be off 3 - 4 % from one hospital to the next? Thanks,
- David L Lindsay, Regional Director of Environmental Services/Linen Services Franciscan Health System, Tacoma, WA

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Laundry Employee Competency

Question: I manage a home care agency and we need to teach our employees how to do laundry for our clients. They put sheets, towels, sweaters, etc. in the same load.
We need to have a program in place to introduce to our employees, and to test their competency before they do someone else’s laundry. Most of our clients are older adults with a fixed income.
I also need to know the most economical detergent they can use that will still do the job of getting their clothes and linens clean.
- Kathy Grein