Different Types of Wiping Cloths

Several types of wiping cloths are available for use in food contact surfaces. These include cotton rags, tack rags, cellulose/cotton blend cloths, and nonwoven wipes. Each of these cloths is suited for different tasks.

The cotton rag is ideal for general cleaning. It is lightweight and has minimal lint. It is used for general cleaning, grease clean-up, oil spills, machinery cleaning, and for general shop rag purposes. It is commonly used in commercial food-service environments. The cotton terry bar towel is also used in these settings. It is also used to clean up food spills. However, it is important to note that it is not a good choice for cleaning up food spills from plates or other surfaces because it transfers the contamination back to the surface.

The guidelines were that a cloth's RLU value must be above 10 to be considered clean. When the RLU value is above 30 it is considered dirty. The ATP-B test was done to measure how well each of the cleaning cloths performed in removing microbial contamination from tableware. The results indicated that none of the cleaning cloths alone could bring the cleanliness level to acceptable levels. The combination of a cloth type and disinfectant was most effective.

The cellulose/cotton blend cloth was the best performing cloth. This cloth was composed of 70% cellulose and 30% cotton. It was found that the cloth reduced total plate counts by 76*74%. The other two cloths, a cotton terry cloth and a nonwoven cloth, performed the worst. Both of these cloths reduced the number of total plate counts by 67*08% and 68*20% respectively.

The silver dihydrogen citrate spray is a ready-to-use disinfectant that contains silver ions stabilized in citric acid. It is also known to damage protein structure and kill bacteria. It was sprayed onto the tables before the cloth treatments and gently wiped off after 5 minutes. This disinfectant was repeated for three days in a week. The cloths were stored in sanitizer solutions to keep them free of soil. The sanitizer solution must be appropriate in concentration (400ppm) and must not bind to the cloth.

The swabs from the cloth-treated surfaces were then subjected to hygiene monitoring using the aerobic TPC assay. The TPC assay uses an enzyme that reacts with a bacterium to produce a colour change. The color change indicates a high bacterial load. This assay can be used to provide real-time hygiene monitoring in the public sector.

The ATP-B test scale is a good indicator of the level of contamination on surfaces. The higher the ATP-B number, the more contaminated the surface is. The cloths that were used for the testing were contaminated with Enterococcus faecalis and E. coli. They also showed negative RLU values, which are a reflection of the variability in the contamination.