Regular readers of our blog may remember a story we ran about the Color Me Rad Race in Boston last summer. Color Me Rad is a nationwide 5K race venue that travels city to city. Runners start the race with a clean white t-shirt, and as they make their way through the course, they are doused with brightly colored cornstarch. By the time runners hit the finish line, they sport a colorful rainbow of colors from head to toe. We ran this story in part because race director Jessica Hall contacted 1-800-SWEEPER for post-race clean up assistance, and in part because she wrote a glowing testimonial that spoke to Immaculate Power Sweeping’s ability to leave the venue looking pristine in just a few short hours after the conclusion of the race.
This month’s edition of North American Sweeper Magazine has a fascinating interview with Immaculate’s Derek Grieco. In this feature story, Derek explains in great detail how his company managed to clean up after the race, and how his conversations with race director Jessica Hall helped to create a new job spec for cleanup efforts for other venues in the Color Me Rad race circuit.
The colored cornstarch is very light and silky and the material will stain pavement if it comes into contact with water. According to Grieco, “If we sprayed water on the initial sweep, it would’ve instantly stained the entire parking lot. We couldn’t use a mechanical broom to sweep it up because it would’ve created a massive dust bomb. It had to be done with a vacuum sweeper.” By running the sweeper just above idle, and dry vacuuming first, much of the colored cornstarch could be easily removed from the pavement surface. For the second phase of the cleanup, Grieco hired a company with a water truck used to fill pools. Once on site, the Immaculate crew attached a 1- 1/2” hose to the tanker and washed the stained areas. The water suspended the staining starch suspend, which was vacuumed up with a second pass of the sweepers. If you are wondering how Grieco’s equipment fared when it got back to the shop, the news was a pleasant surprise: Derek’s hoppers were spotless. The starch actually dissolved into water placed in the hopper before heading to the jobsite and the exterior of the trucks just needed a quick rinse.
One of the most interesting parts about coming to work at 1-800-SWEEPER each day is that when the phone rings, we never know who will be calling. Sure much of our work is of a very ordinary variety, but we get some unusual calls too. From hurricane cleanups to race venues and Mardis Gras….we hear (and sweep) it all. To read the rest of the story about how Immaculate Power Sweeping saved the day for the Color Me Rad folks in this month’s issue of North American Sweeper Magazine, click here.
