Laundry Hygiene in Clinics, Gyms, and Spas: How to Handle, Wash, and Store Shared Linens

Clinics, spas, gyms, salons, and group practices all rely on textiles: towels, robes, gowns, blankets, and staff apparel. Each item is used, set down, and used again, and the wash is the step designed to remove soil from the textile between those uses.

This article examines what published guidance says about laundering discipline in shared settings and which parts carry over to everyday textiles like towels and robes. One boundary up front: laundry soiled with blood or other potentially infectious materials triggers specific Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements for the workers who handle it,^1,2 and health care facilities follow their own protocols and CDC guidance.³ That is, handling for people trained and equipped for it, under the protocols that apply. The everyday suggestions below are not a substitute for those rules, for a facility's own protocols, or for the instructions on a detergent label or a washing machine.

Keeping used and clean textiles apart

OSHA's Bloodborne Pathogens standard applies wherever workers reasonably anticipate contact with blood or other potentially infectious materials as part of their duties, regardless of the setting.¹ For laundry covered by that standard, OSHA requires bagging or containerizing it at the location of use, handling it as little as possible, and placing and transporting it in labeled or color-coded bags or containers.^1,2 CDC's health-care laundry guidance recommends the same approach: minimum agitation and containment through transport.³

The underlying logic extends beyond any one industry's rules: once a used towel and a clean one share a cart or a shelf, handling—not washing—determines whether they stay separate. For everyday textiles, a facility weighing its own process might start with the same questions: where do used items go the moment they leave the treatment room or gym floor, and does that route ever cross the path of clean stock?

Dosing and loading: the label is the instructions

The American Cleaning Institute's consumer guidance is blunt about 2 habits: use the proper amount of detergent—the label is the authority, and too much or too little can leave laundry less clean—and don't overload the washer, because clothes need room to move.⁴ ACI also notes that overloading can keep clothes from getting clean and can strain the machine.⁴

For a shared facility running its own machines, the conservative reading is simple: Follow the detergent label and the machine manufacturer's instructions and treat a stuffed drum as 2 loads. Facilities that use an outside laundry can ask the vendor how loads are sized and dosed.

Protecting clean textiles after the wash

CDC guidance calls for cleaned textiles to be packaged before transport, so they are not inadvertently contaminated by dust and dirt during loading, delivery, and unloading, and for clean and used textiles to travel separately.³ The everyday parallel is straightforward: clean towels stored in a covered container, on dedicated shelving, away from the flow of used items. A facility can audit this by tracing one clean towel from the dryer to the client and noting every point where it sits uncovered or shares a surface with something used.

Documentation: the certification model

The textile-services industry's own certification programs take a process view of laundry hygiene. TRSA's Hygienically Clean certification, for example, is awarded to laundries that pass qualifying microbiological tests, document best management practices in a quality-assurance manual, and pass an onsite audit - with microbial testing repeated quarterly and inspections every 3 years to keep the certification.⁵

A small facility does not need a certification program to borrow the idea. Writing down who collects used textiles, how they are contained, what wash settings and products are used, and where clean stock lives turns "how we do laundry" into something that can be checked, trained on, and fixed when something goes wrong.

Where this leaves shared facilities

For everyday textiles—spa towels, gym towels, robes, blankets—the published guidance points to 4 process questions worth asking: how used items are contained at pickup, whether dosing and loading follow the product and machine instructions, how clean items are protected after washing, and whether any of it is written down. Answers will differ by facility, and product labels, equipment instructions, and local rules govern the details. Anything beyond everyday textiles - above all, anything contaminated with blood or other potentially infectious materials - needs handling by people trained and equipped for it, under the protocols that apply to that facility.

References

1. Bloodborne pathogens. 29 CFR § 1910.1030. Accessed November 9, 2026. https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.1030
2. Hospitals eTool: laundry: biological hazards: infectious diseases. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Accessed November 9, 2026. https://www.osha.gov/etools/hospitals/laundry/biological-hazards
3. G. Laundry and bedding. Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities (2003). CDC. January 8, 2024. Accessed November 9, 2026. https://www.cdc.gov/infection-control/hcp/environmental-control/laundry-bedding.html
4. Laundry basics. American Cleaning Institute. Accessed November 9, 2026. https://www.cleaninginstitute.org/cleaning-tips/clothes/laundry-basics
5. Hygienically Clean. Textile Rental Services Association. Accessed November 9, 2026. https://www.trsa.org/certification/hygienically-clean/