Environmental Monitoring - Settle Plates, Contact Plates, Active Air Samples

Basic methods - Settle plates, Contact plates, Active air samples
There are several methods used for the environmental monitoring of controlled spaces.  These can be split into passive or active methods.  Settle plates are the main passive method deployed for air monitoring and have the benefit of being low cost.  Contact plates and swabs are used for surface monitoring whereas active methods are primarily air samplers which sample a known volume of air over or through a collection medium.

Key monitoring requirements
Whether the environment is a clean room, isolator, operating theatre, office, factory or waste processing site, many of the requirements for microbiology media remain the same.  This would apply to settle plates for air monitoring, contact plates for surface monitoring or active air sampling.

At the point of use:

• Agar plates must have no free moisture on the surface
• They must have no existing microbial growth (sterile)
• They must be easy to identify as the correct type of media
• They must be capable of growing the types of microorganisms appropriate for that environment
• It must be possible to collect the intended sample without contaminating the agar before or after the sample is taken

Redipor performance guaranteed
All Redipor agar plates are designed for storage at room temperature so that it is easier to deliver them to the point of use in good condition. We manufacture agar in Petri Dishes 55mm, 90mm and 140mm diameter and in Contact Plates. All Redipor agar plates are supplied with a Quality Control Certificate and a batch record to give confidence in their performance.

Pharmaceutical needs
For the pharmaceutical industry we manufacture Tryptone Soya Agar and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar with several different optional neutralisers for antibiotics and disinfectants. These are wrapped in a choice of multiple layers of sealed film and gamma irradiated in a sealed box to ensure that at the point of use, both the packaging and the agar surface is sterile.

Other environments
For other environments we can supply selective or differential media to enable the detection of specific types of organism that might be of concern such as yeasts and moulds in ventilation systems or enterobacteriaceae and coliforms in beverage packaging areas. In this case each agar plate is intended to indicate the presence of those types amongst a background of mixed bacteria and sterile outer packaging is less beneficial.

Monitoring convenience
We can also supply agar dip slides for convenient non-critical hygiene monitoring on surfaces and in fluids.