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 Readers of my pages will find a bias toward biohazard cleaners interested in bloodborne pathogens. As a biohazard cleaner involved in homicide, suicide, and unattended death cleanup, I need to know about bloodborne pathogens. I also feel a need to share information about bloodborne pathogens for the benefit of professional and lay biohazard cleaners.

A Hawthorne biohazard cleaner has a need to know about biohazards, besides bloodborne pathogen biohazards. Why? Because more information helps biohazard cleaners gain a broader, deeper perspective related to biohazard cleanup. Other biohazard cleaners exist in the world besides those of us involved in crime scene cleanup.

Many biohazard cleaners work with government ran agencies or corporations. Many biohazard cleaners work with laboratory equipment. Many biohazard cleaners work with species in the wild while trying to control the spread of invading species. If in any way I have broadened biohazard cleaners' mind set for biohazard cleanup occupations, then I succeeded in my primary goal.

Below I comment on various biohazards with most of my attention placed on bloodborne pathogen biohazards. These "germs" have certain hazards for biohazard cleaners. I do not care to dramatize these hazards. Properly trained, properly equipped, and properly supplied biohazard cleaners have little risk from their biohazard cleaner tasks.

So this biohazard cleanup web page seeks to define biohazards related to bloodborne pathogens. It also hopes to clarify Hawthorne biohazard cleanup related to homicides, suicides, and unattended deaths. These incidents, including trauma, create the greatest biohazards related to bloodborne pathogens.

I need to make an exception for the medical professionals. Bloodborne pathogens related to needle stick by far create the greatest risk of bloodborne pathogen contamination. Every year hundreds of nurses, nurses assistants, doctors, and others suffer needle stick. Fortunately the great majority of the incident create little problem.

For those few needle stick incidents creating bloodborne pathogen contamination, HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C create monumental risks to the injured.

My interests here apply mostly to bloodborne pathogens. For Hawthorne biohazard cleanup technicians these pathogens present the greatest risk. Professionalism and attention to detail reduce biohazard risks to very low levels.

Here's a note on some pathogens, like cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. These killer pathogens have our attention because of their virulence, their ability to sustain their selves and destroy human life. Most pathogens rarely inflict any damage beyond a cold or a sore throat.

More recent studies point to a few evolutionary paths for these varying levels of virulence. Among these paths, a pathogen's way of moving and its ability to survive without an organism as host add to its germ power. In other words, germs move with people. Some of these germ survive without people in the wild.

Know the role of vectors in their world-wide movement hardly helps the biohazard cleaner interested in do safe work. Knowing as much as possible about germs helps biohazard cleaners keep their minds' growing. As a result they have more information with which to think critically.

Airborne Biohazards

Airborne biohazards float about with wind, building drafts, and other air currents. Airborne biohazards include influenza, tuberculosis, small pox, chicken pox, and other illness producing biohazards.

Smallpox has a reputation (Germany 1996) for following hospital air draft indoors. This tiny biohazards also follows indoors draft outdoors and up alongside buildings.

Dried flaked blood becomes biohazardous once airborne. So biohazard cleaners must lightly moisten flaked blood to keep it from becoming airborne.

Bloodborne Biohazard

Biohazard cleaners working with blood soiled objects must keep bloodborne biohazards in mind These include HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C. Biohazard cleaners have the ability to hamper the movement and survival of these bloodborne pathogens. Biohazard cleaners can perform any of the following tasks to help control the spread of bloodborne pathogens.

1. Wear protection.
2. Lightly spray with bleach.
3. Triple bag.
4. Destroy pathogen's food source (bleach).
5. Work at a distance from blood soiled materials.
6. Cover with sealers before handling.
7. Freeze, include in biohazard transport system.
8. Ensure biohazard cleaner shots remain up to date.

Biohazard cleanup for unaccompanied deaths, suicide, and homicides remain the more serious biohazard cleaner duties. We use professional biohazard cleanup equipment to return homes or businesses to their prior condition.

Among other substances, a biohazard will consist of wet, moist, and flaked blood from human bleeding and loss of other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). A professional biohazard cleaner's service should be sought. Cleaning biohazards requires certain skills, abilities, and knowledge to be done correctly and safely.

Sewage Biohazards

Pathogens in sewage survive because sewage supports them. In sewage pathogens grow and multiply. More sewage means more pathogenic sewage habitat. Sewage qualifies as a biohazard cleaner task. Put another way, when cleaning up sewage one becomes a biohazard cleaner.

Bloodborne pathogens do not do well in sewage. Sewage water dilutes pathogens in blood. Sewage destroys pathogenic food sources. As a consequence, using a sanitary sewer for blood disposal makes sense.

Sewage does cause tetanus contamination under the right conditions. Billions of micro-organisms survive and grow in sewage. For this reason we categorize sewage discharges:

1. Category 1 means clear water discharge.
2. Category 2 means dirty, brown water discharge.
3. Category 3 means filthy, infectious, black water discharge.

A category 1 discharge means homeowners, renters, and others may safely remove and dry category 1 sewage discharges. Odors should remain under control. A light solution of bleach and water, 1:10 %, should suffice for nonporous surface decontamination. Soaked materials remain safe. Carpet cleaners and water damage restoration technicians safely return this discharge to normal conditions.

A category 2 discharge means brown water contamination occurred. As in a category 1 discharge, residents may safely return this discharge to normal. But, disposing of carpet cushion and furniture may follow a thorough cleaning. Carpet cleaners and water damage restoration technicians safely return this discharge to normal condition, but only after disposing of some soiled materials.

A category 3 discharge means black water contamination occurred. As in category 2 above, some belongings must be destroyed and safely disposed of in a landfill with proper notification to landfill management.

Category 3 contains sewage pathogens and requires a thorough cleaning and decontaamination with various market chemicals. Bleach and water work on thoroughly cleaned nonporous surfaces. Local janitorial supply companies will offer safe disinfectants for this type of sewage discharge.

Vector Biohazards

Biohazard cleaners in the field of vector remediation try to stop migrating vectors. They also try to remove habitat for the many millions of vectors in our world. Biohazards cleaners often come into contact with species adapting with new modes of transmission. A biohazard cleaner knows too that vectors adapt to environment free of hosts.

To learn more about these biological adaption, see my page on vectors.

To learn more about biohazard cleaners, visit my other biohazard pages.