The End-of-Day Decontamination SOP

Purpose

Four agents a residential crew handles routinely leave the job on the worker rather than in the air: lead dust, silica dust, pesticide residue and sewage. Each reaches the body mainly through the hands, the mouth or clothing, and each will ride home in a truck cab and a family washing machine if nothing stops it. This procedure is the shop's standing rule for stopping it at the job boundary, the same way every day, so the controls do not depend on who remembered.

Scope

Covers: every job the office tags with one or more of lead, silica, pesticide or sewage, from the first break of the day to the tech arriving home.

Does not cover: the controls that keep exposure down during the work (owned by The Dusty Task Setup SOP and the agent's own card); medical surveillance and blood testing (owned by The Exposure and Medical Records SOP); a tech's personal habits at home beyond the shower rule here (How to Keep Lead From Coming Home on You goes deeper on lead).

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1: Tag the day's agents at dispatch

Action: the office marks every ticket with the agents it involves: lead (pre-1978 painted surface disturbed), silica (concrete, masonry, tile or stone cut or drilled), pesticide (any pesticide applied or residue handled), sewage (any drain, sewer, septic or backup work). An unknown is tagged as present.

Acceptance: every ticket on the board reads one or more agents, or "none."

Wrong looks like: a drain call with no tag because "it is just a clog." Stop rule: an untagged ticket goes back to the office before the truck leaves.

Hazard: none at this step, it is a desk decision.

Step 2: Load the wash kit, and check it at every job boundary

Action: a tagged day rides with a wash kit: a water jug with a spigot, liquid soap, paper towels, a nail brush, sealable bags, a clean change of outer clothes per tech, boot covers or a boot brush, and a lidded bin in the cargo area. Check the jug in the morning and again before leaving each job.

Acceptance: the jug holds at least 3 gallons at every check, and soap and a clean change are present for each tech.

Wrong looks like: a half jug after the first wash-up. Stop rule: under 3 gallons, refill before the next tagged job; with no refill available, the crew finds running water before the next break, not after it.

Hazard: a full jug weighs over 25 pounds; lift it from the bed with the load close, not at arm's length from the tailgate.

Step 3: Wash hands and face before anything goes in the mouth

Action: at the edge of the work area, before eating, drinking, smoking, vaping or chewing gum, and before the drive: gloves off inside out into a bag, then hands, forearms and face washed with soap and running water for at least 20 seconds, nails scrubbed. On a sewage job, use an alcohol hand sanitizer after the wash, never instead of it. On a pesticide job, wash reusable gloves while still wearing them, then remove them.

Acceptance: the wash happens before the first break and before the drive, every time, and nothing is eaten inside the work area.

Wrong looks like: sanitizer gel as the whole wash. It does nothing to remove lead or silica, and on soiled hands it leaves the soil behind. Stop rule: no running water and no kit water, nobody eats, drinks or smokes until they have washed; a wipe sold for lead removal is a stopgap for the drive, not the wash.

Hazard: on pesticide work, the label's user-safety instructions (wash before eating, drinking, chewing gum or using tobacco) are part of the labeling, and use inconsistent with labeling is a violation of FIFRA. A cut or scrape on a sewage job gets washed, then covered with a waterproof dressing before work resumes.

Step 4: Take off the outer layer at the boundary

Action: coveralls or the outer work shirt and pants come off at the edge of the work area, rolled dirty side in, into a sealed bag marked with the agent and the date. Boots get covers or a brushing outside. On a lead job, 29 CFR 1926.62 requires the employer to provide protective clothing to workers exposed above the permissible limit, and that clothing does not leave for home on the worker. Never blow or shake clothing clean: lead's standard bars removing lead from clothing that way, and compressed air on clothing is barred by the silica standard's housekeeping paragraph except with a capturing ventilation system.

Acceptance: nobody enters the cab in the outer layer they worked in, and every bag is sealed and marked.

Wrong looks like: a dusty sweatshirt on the passenger seat. Stop rule: no clean change on the truck, the tech drives in the base layer or a fresh disposable coverall, never the worked layer.

Hazard: rolling a pesticide- or sewage-soaked garment brings it to the face; gloves stay on until the bag is sealed, then come off last.

Step 5: Keep the cab clean, and prove it

Action: tools, PPE and clothing bags ride in the cargo area in the lidded bin, never in the cab. Once a week the shop lead HEPA-vacuums and wet-wipes the cab of every truck on lead or silica work; once a quarter, a lab dust wipe of the dash and the driver's floor on lead crews.

Acceptance: the weekly clean is logged with date and initials; the quarterly wipe result is on file and under the shop's own limit (a common starting point is the EPA's current floor value for lead dust in homes, lowered in 2024, so pull the current figure; tune it with your industrial hygienist).

Wrong looks like: a gray film in the cup holders. Stop rule: a wipe over the limit, the truck is cleaned and resampled before it carries anyone home in a shared vehicle, and the crew's tasks are reviewed as an exposure finding.

Hazard: cleaning the cab is a disturbance: gloves and a respirator under the shop's 29 CFR 1910.134 program, HEPA vacuum, wet wipe, no compressed air and no dry brush.

Step 6: Drop the clothing at the shop for laundering

Action: bagged clothing goes into the shop's laundry bin, not home. Lead clothing is laundered by the shop or a commercial service told in writing that it carries lead, as 29 CFR 1926.62 requires for clothing provided under it. Pesticide clothing is washed separately from other laundry, hot, following the label; clothing drenched in concentrate is thrown away, not washed. Sewage-soiled clothing is washed separately, hot.

Acceptance: every bag from the day is in the bin, marked, and the laundry log shows it out and back.

Wrong looks like: a tech taking bags home "to save a trip." Stop rule: a bag that went home is a take-home exposure: the household washer gets run empty on hot before family laundry goes in, and the event is logged.

Hazard: opening bags releases what is in them: gloves on, open into the machine or the service's container, no shaking out.

Step 7: Shower before family contact, and leave the boots

Action: on a lead day above the permissible limit, 29 CFR 1926.62 requires showers where feasible; the shop rule is that every tagged tech showers before contact with family, at the shop if it has one, otherwise first thing at home. Work boots stay at the shop on a rack.

Acceptance: the tech's boots are on the rack at close; the tech confirms the shower at the next morning's huddle.

Wrong looks like: boots by the front door at home. Stop rule: a tech who cannot shower before contact with a child or a pregnant partner changes and washes at the shop before leaving, with the shop lead's help.

Hazard: none new at this step beyond the slip risk of a shop shower, which gets a mat.

The record this produces

On each tagged ticket: the agents, kit checks with jug level at each, wash times, bag marks, and any stop rule taken. In the shop: the weekly cab log, the quarterly wipe results by truck, and the laundry log with the written notice to the service. The shop lead reads them weekly; the person reviewing a high blood lead result reads them first, because the cab and the laundry are the two places a source hides.

Worked pass: a two-tech handyman crew, one day, two agents

Morning: a basement floor drain backup in a 1955 house, cabled and cleaned up. Afternoon: scraping and priming a painted porch rail on a 1949 house, presumed lead.

• Step 1, pass. Tickets tagged sewage and lead.
• Step 2, pass at 7:15. Jug at 3 gallons; soap, towels and two clean changes aboard.
• Step 3, pass at the drain job. Gloves off into a bag; both techs washed with soap, then sanitizer. With boots rinsed, the morning used the full 3 gallons.
• Step 2, fail at 11:40. Leaving the drain job, the jug read empty. Stop rule: refill before the next tagged job. The nearest refill was the shop, 40 minutes the wrong way.
• Step 4, pass. Outer layers bagged, marked "sewage" and the date.
• Step 3, at lunch on the porch job. No kit water, so the Step 3 stop rule held: nobody ate. The customer agreed to the outside hose bib; both washed with the kit soap, then ate in the truck after the wash, outside the work area.
• Steps 3 and 4, pass at 4:30. Washed at the hose bib; outer layers bagged, marked "lead."
• Step 5, pass. Two bags in the lidded bin; cab clean.
• Step 6, pass. Two bags in the shop bin, logged.
• Step 7, pass. Both pairs of boots on the rack.

The fix the shop took from it: the Step 2 check moved from the morning only to every job boundary, which is how the step now reads, and a second jug rides on any day tagged sewage, because sewage washes use the most water.

References

• 29 CFR 1926.62, Lead in construction: protective clothing, laundering notice and hygiene facilities
• 29 CFR 1926.1153, Respirable Crystalline Silica (construction), housekeeping paragraph
• FIFRA and the pesticide label's user-safety recommendations
• CDC guidance for workers handling human waste or sewage
• See related: How to Keep Lead From Coming Home on You