17.4 Storage of Tools, Refuse, and Waste

Disinfection is wasted if a clean shear goes back into a hairy drawer. OAR 817-010-0075 is Storage of Tools and Implements. OAR 817-010-0060 is Refuse and Waste Material. Together they close Facility Standards’ infection-control loop: what is clean stays clean, and what is waste leaves the chair the way the Board wrote it.

Storage — OAR 817-010-0075

Four sentences. Learn them as written.

(1) New, disinfected and cleaned tools and implements must be stored separately from all others. Clean does not share a cup with soiled. A “used” jar and a “ready” jar are two jars. A drawer that holds yesterday’s unwashed comb and today’s disinfected shears fails (1) even if you “know which is which.”

(2) Roller-storage receptacles and their contents must be clean and free of foreign material. Rollers are a hair-design picture more than a barber picture, but the sentence is still in Division 10. Hair, clips, and dust in a roller bin make the receptacle soiled storage, not clean storage.

(3) All storage drawers used for clean tools and implements must be clean, free of hair and used only for clean tools and implements. Three tests: clean, hair-free, and clean-only. A “clean” drawer that also holds snacks, a phone charger, and a soiled neck-strip roll is not used only for clean tools.

(4) Storage cabinets, work stations and vanities must be kept clean. The station is not a third waste can. Product crust, hair piles, and uncovered wax on a common vanity are (4) problems — and they become 817-010-0055 problems if substances sit uncovered.

A tool is not “stored clean” because it sat in disinfectant. After contact time, rinse or handle as the manufacturer directs, dry as directed, and then place it in the clean, separate, hair-free drawer. A wet shear thrown into a clean drawer with hair already in it fails 817-010-0075 even if the jar was high-level.

Chemical waste versus service waste versus reception trash

OAR 817-010-0060 sorts waste by what it is, not by how full the can looks.

(1) Chemical waste. All chemical waste material must be disposed of in a closed container at the conclusion of each service and disposed of in a fire-retardant container at the end of each business day. Two clocks. Closed at the end of the service. Fire-retardant — airtight metal under OAR 817-005-0005(20) — at the end of the day. A peroxide-soaked cotton left in an open plastic can overnight fails both clocks.

(2) Service waste. All waste related to the performance of services must be disposed of in a covered container to avoid cross-contamination with blood or other potentially infectious materials. Hair piles, used neck strips, and gauze from a clean shave are service waste. Covered means covered — not a decorative open drum.

(3) Non-service waste, with one reception exception. All waste unrelated to performance of services must be disposed of in a covered waste disposal container. Containers located in the reception area, which do not contain waste relating to performance of services, are exempt from having covers. The exemption is narrow. Reception trash may sit uncovered only if it holds no service waste. Drop a used neck strip or bloody gauze into that lobby can and the exemption dies. The can is now service waste and needs a cover — and if it holds blood, it also needs (5).

(4) All outer surfaces of waste disposal containers must be kept clean. A covered can with a crusted, hairy lid still fails (4).

Blood, sharps, bags, and labels

(5) All waste that contains blood or other potentially infectious materials must be disposed of in a glove or plastic bag and then disposed of in a covered container with a garbage liner immediately following the service. Two layers, immediately: bag or glove first, then covered and lined. An open station can, a cape pocket, and the uncovered reception bin are all wrong.

(6) All disposable, sharp-edged or pointed, nonelectrical tools and implements that come in direct contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials must be disposed of in a sharps container that is a puncture-resistant, leak-proof container that can be closed for handling, storage, transportation, and disposal. The container must be labeled with the “biohazard” symbol. A coffee cup, a soda bottle, a quat jar, and an unlabeled plastic tub fail the definition. A used changeable blade that nicked a neck belongs here, not in the high-level jar with reusable shears.

(7) Sealable plastic bags and biohazard labels, if applicable, must be available on the facility premises at all times when services are being performed. The bags and labels are not optional inventory you order after the inspector calls. If you are cutting, they are on the premises. “If applicable” attaches to labels for the waste that needs them; it does not let you open the shop with neither bags nor labels in the building.

(8) All used wax must be disposed of and removed from the facility at the end of each business day. This is the paraffin end-of-day sentence. It matches 817-010-0055(5)’s pointer to 817-010-0060. Used wax does not overnight in the pot, on the vanity, or in an open bowl in the dispensary. Mixed shops still pull used wax at close, even when the barber never touched the unit.

Freelance and independent-contractor chairs inside a licensed facility do not get a personal exemption. The facility premises must still have bags, labels, covered service cans, a fire-retardant chemical can at close, and a labeled sharps container if disposable sharps that contact blood are used. OAR 817-010-0008(4) already pointed blood-contact refuse here; 817-010-0060 is that destination.

A Hillsboro drawer and a lobby can

Nia disinfects her shears correctly in Hillsboro, then drops them into a station drawer that also holds a hairy comb, a phone cord, and yesterday’s neck strips. She nicks the next client, parks the used blade in a paper cup, bags nothing, and walks the gauze to the uncovered reception trash “so the station stays neat.” OAR 817-010-0075(1) and (3) required new and disinfected tools stored separately, in a drawer that is clean, hair-free, and used only for clean tools. OAR 817-010-0060(5) required blood waste in a glove or plastic bag, then a covered lined container immediately. OAR 817-010-0060(6) required a puncture-resistant, leak-proof, closable biohazard-labeled sharps container, not a paper cup. OAR 817-010-0060(3) and (7) forbade mixing service waste into uncovered reception trash and required sealable bags and biohazard labels on the premises while services were performed. A tidy lobby is not the waste rule.