Laundering Effectiveness for Carcinogen Removal
topic
Research on laundering effectiveness for firefighting clothing contaminant removal demonstrates that standard home laundering removes only 30 to 50 percent of fire scene PAH contaminants from outer shell fabrics, with enhanced laundering using higher water temperatures, longer cycles, and specialised detergents improving removal to 60 to 80 percent, but with complete removal impossible after deep contamination penetration into fabric structure that occurs during repeated fire exposures without interim washing.
Role
Establishes the limitations of laundering as the sole contamination management strategy and supports the need for complementary approaches including gross decontamination and clothing change after fire operations, with laundering effectiveness data also guiding the development of improved laundering protocols and specialised cleaning agents for firefighting clothing that can better remove the hydrophobic contaminants that standard detergents cannot solubilise from fibre structures.