Ahh the Great Indoors. It's where we spend 90% of our time--and where the air is often more polluted than the air outside.

Indoor air quality is an important--if overlooked--public health issue. Mold, bacteria, toxic chemicals, and allergens are the indoor pollutants that can make us cranky, headachy, or seriously ill.

Workers, community leaders, and the public need to come together in institutional settings to prevent allergies, asthma, and even worse illnesses amongst the most vulnerable--workers, children and hospital patients.

But few workers are more affected by poor indoor environmental quality than our nation's industrial laundry workers, especially those who work in healthcare laundries.

• Every year each soil sort operator in a high-volume healthcare laundry is exposed to body fluids from 1 million to 10 million sick people.
• 80% of hospital laundry is processed in off-site, high-volume facilities - not in on-premise laundries.
• Unsanitary conditions that affect laundry workers can also affect the cleanliness of the final product