Personal Hygiene and Decontamination Procedures
Why hygiene matters
Workers can carry fibers home on skin, hair, and clothing, exposing family members. Decontamination protects workers and prevents take-home exposure. The classic three-stage decontamination unit has a clean room, shower room, and equipment (dirty) room arranged so a worker moves from dirty to clean.
Sequence for exiting a regulated area: remove gross contamination, doff outer clothing in the equipment room, shower in the shower room, then dress in clean clothes in the clean room. Respirators are removed last, after the body is clean.
Eating, drinking, smoking, chewing gum, and applying cosmetics are prohibited in regulated areas. Workers should wash hands and face before breaks.
Traps
- Showering is required when feasible; answers that skip the shower are usually wrong.
- Removing the respirator before the shower.
- Assuming street clothes can be worn under coveralls and taken home.
- Forgetting that the decontamination unit must be maintained under negative pressure relative to clean areas.
Rule of thumb
Dirty to clean, always. Every decontamination answer should move the worker from the most contaminated zone toward the cleanest, with the respirator removed last.
Worked example
A worker finishes a removal and wants to leave quickly. Correct sequence: HEPA-vacuum the suit, remove outer coveralls in the equipment room, shower, then dress in the clean room, removing the respirator only after showering and before entering the clean room.