Color-coding has become popular in a number of industries in which cross-contamination is a threat to public health, from janitorial to healthcare to foodservice. No matter the industry or the environment, the notion is the same: that by coordinating colors of tools, such as mops, buckets or cloths, with specific areas of a building or room, the risk of crossover of bacteria, viruses and other harmful pathogens is reduced.

The most obvious situations in which to use color-coding in the janitorial industry are in restrooms or in food service prep or cafeteria areas, isolating those germs from the rest of the building. However, color-coding can be used to designate specialty cleaning from general cleaning tasks as well.

Other benefits of using color-coding include simplicity in training a multi-lingual staff, the facilitation of better organization and management of tools and products and increased cleanliness in general.