Hi All I hope that the title of this posting has caught your attention? My question is not about a certain Canadian band or naturism. Someone at my workplace insists that we can not provide company owned fabric coveralls/overalls that are worn next to the skin and expect others to wear them after they have been washed by the company. I have looked at the PPE regs and elsewhere but I can not find a reference to this specifically. This maybe some sort of military code of practice? I have no axe to grind, and just wanted to see what other practitioners think about this and potentially open a debate? Would anyone out there like to contribute to this? DHM

Are disposables not an option? Including underwear?

according to the Department of Health in their guidance document - washing/laundering at 60degrees C for 10 minutes is sufficient to kill most micro organisms, of the remaining it is said they would be present in such small numbers as to not warrant concenr about cross contamination. MRSA is completely removed following a wash at 30 degrees C. Using detergents mean that many organisms can be effectively removed at far lower temperatures. I would also support an earlier thread, coming from a catering background, communal laundering of chefs "whites" is common practice and is deemed the norm from a food safety point of view. Why not contact your laundry, I am sure they would be able to give chapter and verse on their process and how this will guarantee "clean" garments.

Thanks for all responses, once again a very helpful Forum.

The original poster mentioned " military practice". As a general rule in the Services ( i'm not in that line of work at the moment so this may have changed) next to skin wear was "personal issue" and hence marked or named so that if being communially laundered it would be returned to the owner. For PPE- Next to skin wear or personall issue items such as boots, gloves,underwear are not returned to stores for re-issue when the individual no longer needs them. Not sure if this helps, but if you are dealing with military or ex military this may be where the idea has come from. Some people may also not relish the idea of wearing garments that may have been in contact with someone elses sweaty parts, no matter how well laundered they have been. Nic

Thanks for all responses to date. There is an ex-military connection here which is how the query came up. We are not going to take this further, I was just curious about how other industries manage their 'wash and wear' clothing. Thanks again. DHM

Good point from Chris there. The military connection is interesting. Is your staff member saying that it doesn’t happen in the MoD? The MoD no longer issue budgie smugglers (skids), but they do issue long johns. And yes, they are on personnel issue, thankfully, especially as they are mainly used by rocks and armourers in the harrier force. Certain items however such as disruptive pattern material (DPs - combats to civvies) are returned to stores and re-issued after laundering, especially in the Royal Air Farce, mainly desert flavoured DPs. What with the recent defence cuts (sorry re-direction of funds), combined with the new pattern-style DPs under issue, this will be more common. I once lost two pairs of overalls in the late 90’s and all of my DPs (having worn them without T-shirts, so they were next to my skin) so that they could be re-issued to others. Even my “GAS MASKs” were second hand.