Solve the problem!

Student 1: "Hey man, didn't they teach you to wash your hands after you peed?" Student 2: "No. They taught me not to pee all over my hands. Ha-ha!" Just a conversation between two posh students which I recently overheard. But still... in short, this is actually the essence of hygiene and disinfection: how do you prevent everything from getting soiled and contaminated, instead of 'how do I solve the problem'?

We spend endless hours on disinfection, but we hardly spend any time on the basic solution.

There are too many examples. I think about all those blue fly-catching lamps I see hanging. Outside, you see the waste containers, in the sun, in 30 degrees; the ideal breeding ground for flies and other pests. Put them indoors at a temperature of 8 degrees or less, and a problem is dealt with at the base.

Everything is sanitised... except the voltage detector of the Tech-man. He repairs the water purifier and the flow pack machine with the same tool.

In the toilet area, how do I get water from a regular tap and close the tap without touching it?

And what if this last example can be solved by using sensor-operated taps, and your staff washes and disinfects their hands properly, and then they have to take the stairs? Where everybody grabs the railing which was already grabbed by 100 other people?

How do you deal with the driver who was stuck in traffic for 2 hours and who has to use the bathroom so badly that he rushes to the staff toilets without a care of the hygiene regimes?

You can have as big a hygiene brain as you want, but when you barely use it, it will lead to nothing.

Even so, we are about to face even bigger hygiene problems. Due to climate change, we will soon have non-indigenous mosquitoes that spread diseases such as the zika virus, dengue, and malaria. We are more often confronted with the bird flu and swine fever is entering our country via wild boar. In our holiday suitcases and clothing, we bring in bedbugs and other small crawlers. And add this to other bacteriological nightmares that are entering our country unchecked via cruise ships.

How are we going to prevent all that, instead of solving it with pest-free and airtight buildings?

www.bessels.com

Herman Bessels is architect BNA at Bessels architekten & ingenieurs B.V.