The Greening Of Specialty Cleaners Adding spokes to the sustainable wheel, green-certified specialty cleaners fill an environmentally preferable product void. By: Linda Chipperfield A Linda Chipperfield is the vice president of marketing and communications at Green Seal Inc. Founded in 1989, Green Seal is the nation’s first and oldest independent, nonprofit ecolabel with a lifecycle methodology. For more information about GS-53 and the other certifications developed by Green Seal, visit www.GreenSeal.org. A decade or more ago, there were less than a handful of manufacturers in the professional cleaning industry producing green-certified clean-ing products. Today, virtually every major chemical manu-facturer has a line of cleaning products that have been certified, many by Green Seal Inc., recog-nized as one of the leading certification organiza-tions in the world. Some of the earliest certified products were the ones cleaning professionals use most frequently, such as window cleaners and all-purpose cleaners. However, the goal of a green cleaning program is that all products used in cleaning — from chem-icals to vacuum cleaners — meet specific criteria for certification standards. To better understand this, picture all the com-ponents and products used in green cleaning as the spokes on a wheel: If one of those spokes is lost or broken, the entire wheel may collapse. This is how we must view green cleaning and all the products used; all the spokes must be strong, sturdy and in place for building occupants and the environment to benefit from green cleaning and green cleaning products. This also means that all cleaners, including those commonly referred to as “specialty cleaners,” should be green certified. While specialty cleaners may not be used as frequently as, for instance, window cleaners, they are used at some point in virtually all facilities to address scores of cleaning needs. Among the most commonly used specialty cleaners are the following: ■ Furniture polishes ■ Graffiti removers With third-party validation, purchasers can be confident that the green prod-ucts they obtain for their staffs are truly a cut above conventional. for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Sustainability . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Green Cleaning . 18 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • October 2012
CMM – Archives Oct 2012: 18
