The summer months may be when students and teachers get a little time off, but for cleaning professionals it’s when the real work begins. Along with stripping and refinishing floors, cleaning carpets and windows, cleaning workers should be cleaning up the janitorial closet with the goal of making cleaning greener and more sustainable.
This typically involves an audit of all the cleaning products used in the school. The goal of the audit is to look for opportunities to select those products that have a reduced impact on the user, students and staff, the environment, and that also promote sustainability.
For instance, check to see if the closet (or storage center) includes ready-to-use products. These are typically pre-mixed products in small, handheld containers. This type of packaging is convenient, but is costlier in environmental terms as well as cost per unit of solution. More packaging requires more materials, and the release of more greenhouse gasses in the process. Switching to large, highly concentrated cleaning solutions minimizes these issues and can be a cost savings to boot.
The audit should also look into the following things:
Finally, after cleaning out unwelcome products, review those that remain. For each cleaning solution stored in the janitorial closet, a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) must be available in print or online. Time should also be allotted so that school administrators and cleaning workers can become familiar with the SDS, how it is laid out, written, the information provided, etc.
Ron Segura is president of Segura Associates, which works with large organisations to streamline their cleaning and building operations as well as promote sustainability and healthier cleaning strategies.
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