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Commercial sanitation business booms in wake of COVID-19 outbreak

While many businesses are struggling during the public health crisis, others in the business of decontamination are booming.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Many businesses are laying off, but one company is hiring.

Hughes Environmental is a national hazmat cleanup company headquartered in Louisville.

Its crews have been working all day, 7 days a week due to Coronavirus decontamination.

They use an electrostatic sprayer which hits solid surfaces with a charged disinfectant.

“It will dry in two minutes,” company owner Craig Rutledge said.

If areas, such as computer servers, are sensitive to the spray, the crews will use a UV light wand to slowly pass over equipment.

“Put a high dosage of UV light,” Rutledge said. “We want to get within two inches of the surface, and go slowly over it. They disturb the RNA of the virus and they kill it.”

Rutledge points out that his crews are deployed at various commercial places, including office spaces and manufacturing plants.

Some of the locations had tested positive for COVID-19.

Rutledge says the number of contract quotes they have given out has increased “30 fold” since the outbreak.

“One client has us booked for the next three months,” Rutledge said.

To meet the decontamination demand with a supply of workers, suffice it to say Hughes Environmental is now taking applications.

“Try to get people jobs here locally who desperately need them right now.”

Due to the pandemic, no walk-in applicants allowed.

Those interested, Rutledge says, can apply online on the company’s website. https://hughesenv.com/

►Contact reporter John Charlton at jcharlton@whas11.com. Follow him on Twitter (@JCharltonNews) and Facebook. 

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