CATEGORY:
Biohazard / Crime Scene
Summary:
Urine and feces are both categorized as bodily fluids and are considered biohazards due to the presence of bacteria, viruses, and toxins. Consuming or coming in contact with human waste can cause serious health risks such as norovirus, dehydration, and parasitic infections. When cleaning up urine and feces, it is important to wear gloves and use disinfectants such as bleach to properly sanitize the area. However, for large biohazard messes, it is best to hire professional cleaning services to ensure that the waste is disposed of properly and to avoid any potential lawsuits from customers getting sick. Spaulding Decon offers biohazard cleaning services, including hoarding and tear gas removal, mold remediation, and crime scene clean-up.
Did you know that fecal matter and urine can collect in between your toes and under the nails while you shower? While this type of human waste is more common than most people imagine, there are situations in which they become true health risks. Have you ever asked yourself, “Is urine a biohazard?” Keep reading to learn all about it and what you can do to get a thorough biohazard cleaning.
The fact of the matter is that urine is classified as a biohazard known as bodily fluids. Along with urine, this can include blood, vomit, human tissues, and even organs. There are some people who believe that urine is not only sterile but can actually be used to sterilize a wound. These are myths that can end up harming someone’s health.
You may be surprised to learn that urine was thought to help with acne, cancer, rashes, and other health ailments if consumed. When you eat and drink food, it gets filtered through your kidneys. While some of this is in the form of excess water, it also contains cellular byproducts and other waste that your body doesn’t need, such as ammonia and salt.
In addition to this, the urine passes through the urethra on its way out, which is a place in the body that hosts all kinds of bacteria. While safe when present in your urethra at moderate levels, this bacteria can enhance the biohazard dangers that are inherent to urine. Those aren’t the only ingredients that can be contained within someone’s urine.
Medications are also filtered by the kidneys so consuming another person’s urine could introduce unknown meds into your body. As if that wasn’t enough, urine also contains toxins. While these toxins aren’t exactly toxic, they are often highly concentrated within urine so they can affect your health if put into your system.
Just like urine, feces is categorized as bodily fluids and is a biohazard that should be avoided at all costs. In fact, there are even more health hazards associated with feces than urine. This is because feces can host a wide variety of viruses and bacteria, including rotavirus, E. coli, salmonella hepatitis C and A, norovirus, shigella, and many more.
Aside from bacteria and viruses, feces is also composed of water, dead stomach bacteria, food waste, salt, fat, intestinal mucus, and cell linings, among other things. Consuming feces or getting it in a wound, your eyes, or another membrane can cause you to contract one or more viruses.
When you contract the norovirus, for instance, you could feel a fever, migraines, and body aches. It can also cause you to experience stomach cramps, diarrhea, dizziness, and even inflammation of the intestines, otherwise known as acute gastroenteritis. Like a domino effect, norovirus can cause dehydration which produces its own set of worrying symptoms, including dry mouth, itchy throat, vertigo, and a reduction in urination. As if that wasn’t enough to make you wary about cleaning up feces, you could also get parasites from it, such as Balantidium coli, Sarcocystis species, Blastocystis species, and Cystoisospora belli.
If someone in your home has had an accident, then you’re going to need supplies to clean up their waste in the safest manner possible. For starters, you’ll need a pair of gloves, trash bags, bleach, soap, and paper towels. When faced with fecal matter, it’s best to scrap as much of the solid parts into a bag as possible. However, there may be liquid or stains that you’ll need to wipe up with a disinfectant wipe or a paper towel that has been sprayed with bleach. Even if you think you’ve gotten all of the urine and feces, it’s best to wipe the area down with bleach in a radius that encompasses more than just the immediate location of the waste. This is because particles can splash and leak elsewhere even if the human eye can’t see them.
Without the proper equipment and training, cleaning up a massive mess of urine and feces can prove to be a major health hazard. Plus, if you don’t clean it up well enough, this biohazard could affect your friends, family members, coworkers, and others. This is why it’s always best to seek out remediation services from a company with an established and trustworthy reputation.
A credentialed company will outfit their workers with biohazard gear, including a HAZMAT suit. They’ll also make sure that the human waste is disposed of in the proper fashion. This is due to the fact that human feces can’t be thrown out in a regular trash bin like any other type of refuse. Rather, it must be inside of two bags for extra protection, then the bin itself must be designated as a human waste receptacle.
That way, the feces can be handled properly and won’t end up infecting the garbage truck drivers or anyone else for that matter. Another reason you should hire a professional cleaning service is to avoid getting sued.
Since biohazardous material can make people sick, the last thing you’d want to do is defend yourself in court because one or more of your customers contracted a deadly virus. This is one way to ensure that your brand is tarnished and your restaurant goes out of business, for instance.
Has anyone ever asked you, “Is urine a biohazard?” Now that you’ve learned all about it, you can educate them. Afterward, you can make sure that any biohazard messes get handled by professionals.
For almost a decade, Spaulding Decon has been offering people only the best biohazard cleaning services. From hoarding and tear gas removal to mold remediation and crime scene clean-up, we’re here to help. Feel free to learn more about us. If you have any questions, we’re only a phone call away.
Blood can be a difficult and potentially dangerous substance to clean up. Whether it's due to a medical emergency, crime scene, or an accident, it's important to know how to properly clean and dispose of blood to minimize the risk of harm to yourself and others. In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about cleaning up blood, from safety precautions to effective cleaning methods.
Coming into the scene of a suicide can be quite traumatic for anyone, especially family members of the deceased.If someone commits suicide on your property or another location, you will need to clean up the biohazard or remains as law enforcement does not do this. First you will need to call law enforcement to perform a thorough investigation. Once this is complete you should consider hiring biohazard experts as cleaning remains is an extensive job. This requires having safety protective gear, the right chemicals and equipment to clean thoroughly and experts to dispose of decomposition as you cannot just dump it in the trash.
Cleaning can be a tedious, messy, and rather challenging task, especially if you’re dealing with a biohazard environment. Many people take cleaning upon themselves as it seemingly looks simple and straightforward, but rudimentary cleaning knowledge will not suffice if you’re dealing with contaminated areas.
