Green Cleaning

Green Seal

Green Seal is an independent, non-profit organization that strives to achieve a healthier and cleaner environment by identifying and promoting products and services that cause less toxic pollution and waste, conserve resources and habitats, and minimize global warming and ozone depletion. Green Seal has no financial interest in the products or services that it certifies or recommends nor in any manufacturer or company. Green Seal's evaluations are based on state-of-the-art science and information using internationally recognized methods and procedures. Thus, Green Seal provides credible, objective, and unbiased information whose only purpose is to direct the purchaser to environmentally responsible products and services.

Clean Sweep Maintenance uses and follows green seal products and regulations.

What is Green Cleaning?

Green Cleaning is a new approach to janitorial services that offers better environmental performance and improved worker health and safety, while retaining the same sanitation quality as traditional, more chemical-intensive methods. When correctly employed, no "cleaning power" is sacrificed through green cleaning practices.

Why Green Cleaning?

Many cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that can have serious adverse effects on janitorial staff, building occupants, and the environment. Personnel handling cleaning products used to clean floors, carpets, plumbing fixtures, and other building elements can be at risk for a number of adverse health effects.

Janitorial products can cause harm to the environment during their use, if they are poured down drains, circulated through building ventilation systems, or disposed of outdoors. Environmental damage can also occur during the development, manufacture, and transport of these products. Possible environmental consequences of janitorial product use include:

Air pollution

Bioaccumulation of toxic substances in plants and animals

Endocrine disruption in wildlife, which reduces the ability to reproduce

Ozone depletion

Water pollution

Utilized correctly, green cleaning can help to reduce many of these health and environmental hazards.

It has been found that some widely used cleaning products have serious adverse effects on the health of building occupants and janitors. The average person spends about 90% of their day indoors, where air pollution from diverse sources such as cleaners, upholstery, and carpeting can be up to 100 times greater than outdoor air. Short term health problems caused by exposure to hazardous cleaning products range from eye irritation and coughing to chest pain, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea. Long-term effects may include liver and kidney failure, birth defects, emphysema, brain damage, and even cancer. 11.6% of work-related asthma comes from cleaning products. In addition, people who suffer from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, a disease that is not fully understood or recognized by the medical community, feel that low level exposure to chemicals, such as cleaning products, cause them to feel sick.

Green Cleaning aims to eliminate or reduce these potentially harmful toxins and carcinogens and aims to minimize resource consumption through product substitutions and procedural changes. Green Cleaning emphasizes the environmental sustainability of cleaning operations and overall building health and does not solely evaluate building cleanliness based on appearance.

EZ Design