Biotoxification - Your Cleaning Service Failure

Oct. 11, 2012 - PRLog -- The day may start off well enough.  Everyone arrives, the office starts humming, and the challenges of the day are addressed.  Millions of workers come ready for a good day at work and actually want to do a good job

After a few hours, the afternoon seems subtly different.  Eyes are redder and irritated for some.  A few others feel a familiar headache punishing them.  Many workers have felt the tiredness hit in the afternoon clouding their ability to work at top efficiency.  This common and constant string of workplace ails are not just from hectic schedules and lack of sleep.  It is often from the toxic condition of the majority of workplaces across every state and city.

Whether a shop, office, or factory what we cannot see are the numerous fumes that are at work.  Some of these fumes can come from building material, paint, carpet, and furniture; but these troublesome sources reduce over time.

There are a couple of causes for biotoxication, and they are the cleaning service and maybe the pest service.  These services return time and again to spread their chemicals leaving before the day crew arrives.

The facts are that the cleaning service hauls in hundreds of pounds of cleaning products throughout the year, liberally dousing the building with a brand new punch of cleaning fluids that go into the air.  These are often the smells you detect as you enter the building, but think they are harmless and a sign of a clean building.

As Dave Thompson of the Green Clean Institute points out, "A clean building may not be a healthy building, but a healthy building is always a clean building."  OSHA confirms this concern pointing out that poor indoor air quality costs American businesses more than $60 billion a year in lost productivity.  EPA reports that Americans spend 90% of their time indoors, but the indoor air is often 4 to 5 times worse than the outside air.

Why?  In major part because your cleaning service is not nearly as Green as they claim with no training and only enough Green products to provide a token Green covering.  90% of all cleaning services still use string mops!  The vast majority of frontline workers have no training on Green cleaning practices.  

When reviewed by the 180 Best Practices for Green Cleaning, nearly 94% of cleaning services fail a simple review.  So, while your firm may save a penny or two hiring the company with the lowest bid, it is often trading the health of the workers.  Hiring a cleaning service is about far more than price.  Obviously, they must do the job for cleaning.

But, the ammonia in the window cleaning, the acid-based bowl cleaner, the failure to prevent dirt at the entrance, the dated equipment that no longer is up to standard, and the "other non-Green" products used in the cleaning program is infringing on everyone's health from the boss down to the accountants.

This brings us to a very big question.  "How does anyone know if the service is doing the job?"  The Green Clean Institute maintains a janitorial directory (http://www.greencleaninstitutedirectory.com) that is very selective.  No one can pay to get on it.  Only firms that are "Green Certified" are listed.  Hundreds of quality firms across the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world are listed on this janitorial directory, and they are renewed each year based on continuing education and Green practices used.

Life is too short, and illness in our later years may come from mistakes made when it all seemed so harmless.  We got rid of second-hand smoke which killed innocent workers.  How long until we get rid of the toxins in the office that may be killing us at a slower rate?