How to take Care of Your Commercial Linen or Trash Chute

Trash chutes and sometimes linen chutes are a necessity for any commercial hi-rise. They provide the occupants of a building with a convenient way of taking out their trash or their laundry, and they keep smelly, unsightly and potentially dangerous substances out of sight and out of mind. Unfortunately, they also tend to be taken for granted. Few people ever really think about what happens to their trash once it goes down a chute and into a dumpster, but the chutes themselves are an integral part of the building and must be cared for.

Why Trash and Linen Chutes are Important

Trash chutes are a necessity in commercial and residential hi-rises simply because it allows garbage to be disposed of from any floor of the building. The chutes are covered for safety reasons, and they ensure that potentially hazardous materials are handled as little as possible. The chutes themselves go directly to dumpsters in an enclosed area, keeping garbage off the streets as well as away from workers and residents.

Linen chutes are also very important for buildings that need them. A linen chute is generally included in a building that regularly has soiled linen that needs to be collected and washed regularly. Soiled linen can contain anything from dirt and food particles to blood and human waste. Naturally, linens that may contain blood and human waste (such as those found in nursing homes and hospitals) are biohazards and need to be collected in a way that exposes as few people as possible. Much like trash chutes, linen chutes can allow this to be done as simply as possible.

Caring for Trash and Linen Chutes

As useful as trash and linen chutes are to the health and convenience of those in a hi-rise, they need to be maintained. They get very dirty for obvious reasons, and the fact that people throw things like spoiled food and used kitty litter without bags makes things even worse. Food that gets on the walls of trash chutes attracts pests like fruit flies and cockroaches, and the aforementioned soiled linens can carry bacteria and blood-borne pathogens that can be hazardous to the health of those in the hi-rise.

Trash and linen chutes need to be cleaned regularly. How often they are cleaned will depend on how often they are used and what they are used for, but they should undergo a professional cleaning at least once a year. This generally means going over the entire inside of the chute with a disinfectant and eliminating any signs of vermin.

Trash and linen chute maintenance also means checking out the coverings for the chute openings. They should close tightly when not in use, and they should be kept clean at all times. It is very possible for a person to fall down these chutes if the openings are too wide and the coverings don’t work properly, so they should be tested and replaced as needed.