I would feel a lot safer if they weren't carrying the barrels by their lids. Fortunately waste disposal in New York is handled by the most ethical and safety conscious people in the world. And if youse questions that, youse might just be found in the East River. Capiche?
I think this may be the answer. I would have been concerned if they showed up on the street with their hazmat suits on. After all, we would expect those suits to be covered with questionable biological material. The best technique would have been to take them off prior to coming into a public, uncontrolled area.
The proper procedures for something like this has got to be a nightmare. Here's my first guess:
(1) don suits
(2) enter hazardous area with all equipment you are ever going to need unless you are able to pass things in from the outside and seal the apartment
(3) clean every surface which possibly could be contaminated while not spreading any contamination which might have accumulated on your suit (WOW!)
(4) establish a portable clean field by rolling out a fresh mat where everyone can stand
(5) clean your suit and equipment on the clean field
(6) take off cleaned hazmat suit for disposal while standing on the clean field
(7) someone still in a hazmat suit places discarded hazmat suit in a barrel
(8) last guy puts their own hazmat suit in barral
(9) roll up "clean field" and place in barrel
(10) seal lids on barrel and hope that nobody touched the outside with their hazmat suits prior to being sprayed down
(11) open the apartment
(12) carry the barrels out to the street in your street clothes
You really think hosing down was going on inside the building? On the exteriors of the barrels as well?
I take it those who work in such jobs are at the low end of the spectrum for concern about germs and such.
My thoughts too - it would be worse to be wearing the suits on the way out than to have decontaminated and put them in the barrels. But, many here are so eager to jump the shark that they put the Fonz to shame...