At a border post a CBRN boot is not drawn for an incident and returned afterwards. It is pooled stock, taken out by size at the start of a shift and walked on for ten hours across polished terminal stone, apron concrete and the steel floor of a vehicle inspection pit. The routine therefore cannot be built around missions, because there are none. It has to be built around the handover.
Anchor the routine to the shift handover
The outgoing officer passes the pair to the incoming officer, both look at it in the locker light, and the result goes on the same sheet that records the radio and the keys. Ninety seconds, boot in hand, covers the four checks below. A nominated inspector also deep-checks a slice of the pool monthly, rotating so every size is covered each quarter, and once a year the whole pool gets a cold-flex check in the temperature the post works in, not the store room's.
Four checks carry most of the risk and each has one written fail condition. At the sole bond line, any visible gap or chalky white edge fails the pair. Along the shaft seam and heel tape, a lifted edge fails. At the metatarsal crease, a crack that opens under flex and closes at rest fails. In the tread grooves and welt, a stain that survives cleaning fails, because that is where a powder or a drip hides. Every fail is tagged, pulled from the pool that shift and quarantined by pair number.
Cleaning is routine, decontamination is an event
These are two jobs, and posts that wear the boot all day blur them. Cleaning happens every shift: rinse the apron residue off, brush out the tread, dry the boot away from heat. Decontamination happens only after a substance event at a lane, a consignment or a vehicle, and it is not finished until detection has been run and a supervisor has signed the pair back into service. A butyl upper can look spotless with material still sitting in the welt, so appearance proves nothing.
The agents list, including the ones you did not buy for
Approved: water from ambient to lukewarm, pH-neutral detergent at the dilution stated in the manufacturer's written compatibility data, a soft brush, lint-free cloths. Forbidden by default: ketones, aromatic solvents, paint thinners, neat hypochlorite, abrasive pads, machine washing, hot-air drying and silicone dressings that make an aged boot look serviceable.
The fluids ending a pair's life rarely come from the threat list. De-icing glycol on a winter apron, hydraulic fluid at a boarding bridge, fuel drips at a bowser and the post's own floor stripper all attack sole bonds and seam adhesive, and none of them appear in a permeation table. Ask for compatibility data on those fluids as well, and write them into the forbidden-contact list.
Repair limit, retirement and the pair record
Repair is limited to the manufacturer's sole-bond and tape kits, and a repaired boot returns to non-CBRN duty only, marked as downgraded. Retire the pair on a breach, a flex crack, bond separation past the written limit, an unverified contamination event, or the decontamination-cycle cap. Pooled stock loses traceability quickly, so number the pair rather than the size: pair ID, lot, issue and handover history, decontamination events with the signature, and the disposal code.
For the next tender, ask for five things: a pair-level marking that survives cleaning, the lot on the boot rather than the carton, a written agent list covering glycols and hydraulic fluids, written repair and retirement limits, and a declared decontamination-cycle count.