The BICSc colour-coding system uses four colours — red, blue, green and yellow — to separate cleaning equipment by area and prevent cross-contamination. Red is for washrooms and sanitary areas, blue for general lower-risk areas, green for kitchens and food preparation, and yellow for clinical and isolation areas. Cloths, mops, buckets, gloves and aprons all follow the code.
What the BICSc colour code is
The four-colour scheme was created by the British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc), the UK's largest independent professional body for the cleaning industry with over 45,000 members. It assigns a colour to cleaning equipment — cloths, mops, buckets, gloves and aprons — so that kit used in one type of area is never used in another. The purpose is simple and important: to stop germs being carried from a high-risk area, such as a toilet, into a low-risk one, such as a kitchen or a desk.
Red — washrooms and sanitary areas
Red equipment is reserved for the highest-risk sanitary areas: toilets, showers, basins, and bathroom and washroom floors. Because these areas carry the greatest contamination risk, keeping their cloths and mops strictly separate is the single most important part of the code.
Blue and green — general areas and kitchens
Blue is for general, lower-risk areas — offices, waiting rooms, corridors and general wards, covering dusting and furniture. Green is for kitchens and food-preparation areas, keeping food-hygiene surfaces separate from everything else. In a mixed workplace these two cover most of the day-to-day cleaning.
Yellow — clinical and isolation areas
Yellow equipment is used in clinical areas: treatment rooms, and infection-risk or isolation areas. In healthcare and clinical settings the yellow code is central to infection prevention, keeping equipment used around patients apart from general and sanitary kit.
How the code is applied on a contract
Colour-coding is only effective if it is enforced. On our contracts, the code is written into method statements, operatives are trained on it, and equipment is stored and labelled by colour so it cannot drift between areas. It works alongside COSHH controls and documented cleaning schedules — see how colour-coding is applied to cleaning equipment in practice.
BICSc four-colour cleaning code
| Colour | Area | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Red | Washrooms and sanitary areas | Toilets, showers, basins, washroom floors |
| Blue | General, lower-risk areas | Offices, waiting rooms, corridors, general wards (dusting, furniture) |
| Green | Kitchens and food-preparation areas | Kitchens, food-prep surfaces and areas |
| Yellow | Clinical areas | Treatment rooms, infection-risk and isolation areas |