By Healthcare Facilities Today

When you enter the laundry room at the Columbia Health Care Center, instead of the scent of soap or bleach, you get a vague metallic smell, like ozone — because that’s what it is, according to an article in the Portage Gazette.

The Columbia Health Care Center's state-of-the-art laundry system has been up and running for less than a month.The 1,000-plus pounds of bed linens, bath towels, residents’ clothing and other items that are laundered daily, Monday thought Friday, are now treated with a burst of oxygen to kill germs, according to the article.

As a result, the Columbia Health Care Center expects to save energy because laundry no longer needs to be washed in hot water.

Corey Bowman, director of environmental services at CHCC, said the introduction of germ-killing oxygen into each washload means that articles formerly laundered in 160-degree water can be washed in 80-degree water - resulting in comparable disinfection at a fraction of the energy cost, the article said.

Because the ozone laundry system has only been operating a few weeks, CHCC officials don’t yet know how extensive the energy savings will be.

Read the article.