Why Do Green Cleaning Solutions Vary? Several years ago, the facility manager for a group of buildings owned by a northeastern state began switching from traditional cleaning products to greencertified cleaning products. For the most part, the transfer went smoothly. By then, many green-certified cleaning products were both cost effective and performed as good as, if not better, than their traditional counterparts. However, there was one exception: floor care products. Even today, some cleaning contractors complain that environmentally preferable floor care products, from cleaning solutions to glosses and finishes, just do not work as well or hold up as well as their traditional alternatives.
Let’s start with a scenario:
You are a contract cleaner. You were one of the first contract cleaners in your community to adopt a green cleaning strategy, transfer to green cleaning products and methods and market yourself as a green cleaning building service contractor. You took this approach a good 15 years ago, which was a perfect time to join the green cleaning movement. The future looked bright. It appeared more and more businesses were jumping on the green cleaning bandwagon, and some, such as schools, were now required to use green cleaning products and programs.
But that was last year, and a lot may change over the next few years to come.
The most common myth I hear about disinfection is that all cleaners disinfect, and that’s not the case. Most green cleaners do not disinfect and I is very important for BSCs to verify that they actually kill germs. For chemicals, you can look for something that’s an EPA registered disinfectant. Then for devices, you want to look for a manufacturer that has ample data showing that their product actually kills microorganisms.
