Compare that with the way most chemicals are sold in bulk:
- For heavy cleaning, mix at 64 ounces per gallon.
- For medium cleaning, mix at 32 ounces per gallon.
- For light cleaning, mix at 16 ounces per gallon.

It sounds simple, but has a number of significant drawbacks that prevent these directions from accurately being followed by the majority of janitors.

• How many ounces are in a gallon?
• How do you measure a gallon of water?
• How do you measure 16/32/64 ounces?
• What defines heavy/medium/light cleaning?
• What if the container is a 2 gallon mop bucket?  Or a 32 ounce spray bottle?
• How can the supervisor determine if the chemical is mixed properly when observing the janitor?
• How can the supervisor/company determine how much chemical is being used each night?

Most janitors don’t carry around measuring cups. And most people do not know how many ounces are in a gallon which rules out many of the other questions. And supervisors have no way to track or measure how the chemicals are being use, and if they are being used properly.

Chemical mixing systems appear to solve some of these problems, but they are far from perfect.

• The systems can be manipulated to have incorrect dilution ratios.
• The systems should be checked on a regular basis to eliminate incorrect mixing ratios either from manipulation (as above) or just recalibrating from use.  How often is this done?
• The operator can still select dilution ratios on some models, going back to the question of what strength solution to use.
• These units are mounted in stationary closets and much time is wasted going back to them to refill the bottles or buckets.
• There is still no way to determine visually if the chemical is being mixed properly.
• There is still no way to determine how much chemical is being used each night.

Is there a better solution to this problem?  You bet!  Chemicals should come in individual use, color coded, single mixing ratio portions.  PortionPac has been doing this 1964.  What do chemicals packaged like this offer?

• Simple mixing.
  No math, no dilution ratios, no measuring cups.  Fill the container to a pre-marked line and add the solution.  Just like OJ concentrate.

• A method for visually determining if the chemical is mixed properly.
  Each chemical is color coded, and when mixed properly every spray bottle, mop bucket and tank will have a consistent, identifiable color.
• A method for tracking usage.
  Since pacs are individual use items, they can be inventoried before usage, counted during usage and patterns of daily usage can be observed.
• The opportunity to mix chemicals where they are needed.
  Any local water source can be used to mix the chemicals.  No more running back to the janitor’s closet and wasting time.
• Increased safety.
  Spilling a gallon jug of chemical can be very dangerous and challenging to clean up.  Spills with most pacs can be cleaned up with a couple of paper towels.

In a recent PortionPac Connection, it was noted that S.C. Johnson is introducing a very similar packaging concept for Windex.  These solutions are a win-win for the industry, the consumer and the environment.  As the Windex site states, it reduces the amount of plastic used by 90% and the elimination of 1.5 pounds of water per bottle. This is a tremendous carbon savings when looking at the transportation and logistics portion of providing chemicals.

The next time you are evaluating chemicals, think if your janitors can mix chemicals as easily as they can make orange juice.

So how do you know if your building is being polluted?  Even without scientific testing (like collecting air and surface samples), there are many signs that can point to a problem.  There can be complaints from employees: allergies, headaches, skin irritations; there can be environmental signs: odors, humidity, temperature; and of course there will be visual signs.

Here is a classic example of “Ring around the building.”  You can usually find this in your restrooms, but also in any room with hard floors that are mopped.  It is the result of janitors using dirty string mops on your floors.  The dirt that has been collecting on the mop is deposited onto the lower two to three inches of the wall and a dark ring is left on the tiles.  Also, take a look at the grout lines.  At one time, they were a light brown in color on both the floors and the walls.  The same mop that is discoloring the walls has discolored the grout lines on both the walls and the floor.

This does not happen overnight; it takes months and months of repeatedly pushing dirt around the floor and the walls for these effects to be seen.  This is, however, a prime example of how many janitorial companies clean and leave you, the customer, with a dirty building instead of a clean one.  In addition to paying for this pollution, you will now need to pay again to have the surfaces restored to their proper conditions.

Eat My Dust only uses methods that remove dirt from your building - not push them around and leave them on the wall.

If you have pictures of pollution that you would like to share, please submit them on our Contact page.

1.  The title - “Prevent flu, maintain a clean environment!” - Somehow, the title suggests that by preventing the flu virus you can have a clean environment.   There is a lot more to maintaining a clean environment then just preventing the flu like, oh, taking out the garbage.  My Logic 101 meter strikes red on that supposition.

2.  ”A disinfecting operation” in the byline.  Disinfecting is not something that is done as a special project.  It should be done each day, every day, by the inherent nature of cleaning.  Sure, there can be extra steps taken in places, but to call it a separate operation is seriously misleading the customer.

3.  ”Disinfecting through misting (ULV Cold Fogging)” - Where to begin with this one.  The most common times fogging is used is for killing fleas or termites or spiders.  Fogging is great for getting into areas that are not easily accessible (or covering EVERYTHING), but do you want to kill the flu virus by fogging?  It just is not an effective use of your money to prevent the spread of disease by disinfecting cracks in your walls.

4.  ”A mist blower that produces an optimum spray of the disinfecting chemical” - Disinfecting chemicals are designed to kill.  In the US, the EPA regulates disinfectants as pesticides.  Yes, we do want to kill (a generic term for alter or inactivate) the flu virus, but we don’t want to negatively affect the building occupants by unnecessarily spraying pesticides!  Breathing in chemicals designed to kill IS BAD FOR YOU.  Ask the person in the picture why he is wearing a full gown, chemical gloves, mask, goggles, and a hairnet.  Do you really want to endanger your employees more from the solution than the problem?  And I’m not even done with the first sentence yet.

5.  ”with droplets diameters between 1 and 30 microns” - Not sure how big 30 microns is?  30 microns is of the size that it goes directly into your lungs because it is too small to be filtered out.  30 microns is roughly the size of the smallest human hair.  In the top picture, the employee is spraying directly above sensitive computer equipment.  Now this spray, which is evenly coating all surfaces, is coating electronic equipment and glass.  After you pay this company loads of money for a “disinfecting operation” you can pay them even more money to clean the residue from the spray off all of your surfaces and equipment.

6.  ”This will ensure a maximum coverage of the exposed surface area.”  If you are worried about maximum coverage of exposed surface areas when you need a micron microscope to see 80%+ of the particles, you have too much time on your hands.

7.  ”The chemical to be used will contain a unique formulation that provides efficient cleaning performance…”  Cleaning involves the removal of unwanted matter.  This is accomplished by friction, heat, rinsing, scrubbing, etc.  Their process is putting chemicals on your surfaces and leaving a residue there.  I do not understand what part of their process cleans.  Unless they come and wipe down every square inch of your office there is a 100% chance that dirt and dust will land on the residue and be even harder to remove.  This process is called polluting.

8.  ”…effective disinfection properties…” Disinfecting requires a 10-minute dwell time to properly kill viruses.  Mist that is too small to even see will not keep a surface damp for ten minutes.  Or, they have to spray so much mist that all these too-small-to-see particles are now pooling and running down your walls and into your computer keyboards.  Some sanitizers work very quickly, but even they require 30 seconds to work properly and there is no claim that this chemical is a sanitizer.

9.  ”…and a persistent and scintillating fragrance to mask malodours will be used in this process.”  If you have malodors in your office, you likely have bigger problems then just the flu (like mold, bacteria, HVAC in need of repair, etc).  The ideal state called ‘clean’ does not have a fragrance.  These scintillating and persistent odors are being inhaled unnecessarily by the building occupants and potentially causing them harm.

10.  ”This chemical is formulated especially for regular cleaning and deodorizing of public areas, and is ideal for floors, walks and other hard surfaces…” The formula is designed for public areas - they are targeting offices - and floors/walks - when is the last time you were touching the floors in your building?  And what about the pictures?  They are spraying this chemical on electronic equipment, walls, glass, and some type of garments.  Those are not walkways and public areas.

11.  ”The testing efficacy of the quaternary active ingredient was made in accordance with…” Ummm.  So testing the effectiveness of only one compound was something that was created using guidelines???  It sounds like they are trying to say they used third party guidelines to establish tests for their products.  But it isn’t saying that.  It also is not saying this chemical is certified or approved by any agency.  And there are other chemicals (fragrances, for example) that may not have been tested because only the active ingredient is called out.  Buyer beware.

12.  ”…in accordance with the DLG (German Agricultural Society)…” and the DLG is who?  According to their website (and Wikipedia), they test agricultural machinery and food and beverages (like wine).  I don’t know that much about them, and could be wrong here, but they do not sound like a leading organization to certify disinfectants.  I used their internal search box to see the results for words like ‘disinfectant’, ‘cleaning’, and ‘guidelines’ and came up empty regarding anything related to this website’s claims.

13.  And the right hand gray side bar sums up everything you should know about paying money for this disinfecting operation.  “Flu viruses and other germs can live for two hours or longer…surfaces are likely to be touched much more often then they can be disinfected or cleaned…it is important to wash your hands often.” Anyone who pays for this polluting process, knowing that most of the germs will die within two hours anyway, has got to be crazy, or just have a ton of money to spend.  Every night all the viruses will die.  What are you really paying this company to do?

Need a sensible flu prevention plan?  Call Eat My Dust.

Touch-free dispensers are generally more expensive as compared to more traditional options.  If we look specifically at hand towels, the roll options for the touch-free dispensers are about 30% more expensive than their multifold, c-fold or manual roll towels.  The dispensers themselves are generally not priced much higher.  We all know that people tend to take many more multi-fold towels then auto-feeding towels.  This is sometimes by choice, but many times it is due to the inherent issues with the dispensers which are either jammed-packed, or give the recipient more towels then they actually need.  I’m sure you have experienced this where you go to grab one or two towels and end up with a handful or some fall directly into the trash below the dispenser.  Setting aside the environmental concerns over usage, some people claim that the savings with the automatic dispensers is as high as 40%.  My evidence is more empirical.

The following pictures are of the trash cans with multi-fold towels and trash cans with the automatic dispensers.  The important point to note is that the multi-fold picture is after ONE day while the picture with the automatic dispensers is after TWO days.  Yes, that’s right.  There has been a significant reduction in trash to the point we are generating less then half the garbage.

Before Picture: Multi-fold towels in garbage after one day

After Picture: Touch-free dispensers after two days

And there are many indirect benefits as well.  First, people really like this style of dispenser because they don’t need to touch anything previously touched by another person.  Second, because people are touching less surfaces, there is less chance for spreading germs and disease.  H1N1 protection plan, anyone?  And third, as we discussed above, these touchless systems are more environmentally friendly.  These specific dispensers have a stub-roll feature which means that every single sheet of paper towel will be used.  No more throwing out the last usable 1/3 of the roll.

Whatever the reason, style, germs or environment; touchless dispensers are the way to go.

And not by accident, this was the place and theme of the (OS1) Users Symposium this year.  Now in it’s eighth year, the Symposium is the annual meeting for all (OS1) users, both in-house and building service contractors.  This year featured excellent speakers and topics such as monitoring indoor air quality, measuring the results of carpet treatment for  enhanced vacuum pick-up, and what is happening with (OS1) and government initiatives.  I also had a part in presenting on the topic of “The Rookie Road” which my fellow users found entertaining.  Ask me about it if you see me.

Some of the highlights were:

• Dr. Jeff Campbell of Brigham Young University gave a preview of his upcoming book and related the longevity of the QWERTY keyboard to the current state of the cleaning industry.  The short story is that current day keyboard has been around since 1837 despite the fact that it is not the most efficient keyboard available.  (Jared Diamond outlines this story in Guns, Germs and Steel.)  In fact, it has been rejected and opposed by the industry and end users for at least 60 years.  His analogy is that (OS1) is in the same situation as Dvorak (which is 95% more efficient and which I have personally been using for over 5 years).  There is an entire industry not willing or able to adopt a system that is so vastly superior to the current system and that it is our job as (OS1) practitioners to spread the word.   His analogy was that (OS1) is(Dr. Campbell is also a head researcher on the recently released APPA “Cleanliness and Learning in Higher Education” that ties students’ success in learning to the cleanliness of their school.)
• Ohio State has introduced House Bill 229 that would implement an (OS1) Pilot Program in three schools.  There is still a long way to go, but legislated cleaning to our high standards would go a long way towards further adoption.
• Tom Lambert of Service Point discussed the pros and cons of measuring indoor air quality, including the interesting fact that testing air quality to verify janitorial practices can have adverse side effects like discovering unacceptable levels of mold or other toxins (coming from sources outside of the janitor’s control, of course!).

As always, the best part of this event was networking with other (OS1) users, but there are many exciting things down the road for everyone involved.

What’s going on? Do distributors really not understand the marketplace? After a number of discussions and quite a bit of searching, there seems to be an answer that provides an explanation.

First, the people that visit the showrooms on a regular basis are small to medium size janitorial companies. The larger customers get personal visits from the sales reps and have their products delivered. They just don’t go to the showroom that often.

Second, these same small to medium size janitorial companies don’t necessarily understand the significant savings over the life of the microfiber products to justify purchasing more expensive equipment.

Third, the distributors make good profits on the cheaper products. Since these cheaper products also need to be replaced more often, the customers who use these products come back more often and spend more money with the distributor. In reality, these customers are a good revenue stream for distributors. The distributors are doing the fiscally appropriate thing and promoting the items their customers want.

All of this leaves a few interesting questions. As the industry continues toward greening itself, how will distributors adopt to selling fewer products less often? Will the small to medium size businesses similarly adopt, or will they just be rendered obsolete?

I look forward to seeing how this plays out over the next 5-10 years, if it even takes that long.

• Green products vs. green practices
  The article interchanges the two terms.  However, they are quite different.  Products are the chemicals or substances that you buy.  The practices are how you use them.  The assumption that a school/company is green, or practices green cleaning,  simply by using green products is completely wrong.  And I’ll save my rant for “green practices” being a misnomer for another post.

• The cost of training for new products
  The CCM (Connecticut Conference of Municipalities) wonders whether custodians will need new training.  If the Connecticut schools are simply changing products, then training should simply by how to mix the new chemicals.  In the end, though, the chemicals won’t make a huge difference without different tools and practices, which would cost quite a bit to purchase and retrain custodians.

• The proposal wouldn’t prohibit schools from using traditional disinfecting products
  Limiting, or not using, EPA registered disinfectants would be catastrophic.  The article insinuates that these chemicals are bad and should be avoided.  Disinfectants are necessary to fight illnesses that live on the surfaces of high risk areas.  Not using a disinfectant would lead to an increase in student absences and the opportunity for bad bugs to thrive and flourish.

One fact in the article that is correct is that proper green cleaning practices will improve indoor air quality and safeguard the health of students, teachers and custodians.  Not only that, but it has been proven to increase attendance and passing reading and math scores on standardized tests.

11.  Can you tell me if your company has a specific green program, or if your entire company is focused on green?  Are all of your customers on a green cleaning program today?

Here are my thoughts on this.  Either the company you are evaluating is focused and commited to a healthier environment, or it isn’t.  It’s quite simple.  Yet, there are many janitorial companies out there that have a green program, green option or special green service.  Especially hilarious are those companies who have a green cleaning option, yet claim they are the “Green Cleaning Leader.”

Let’s dig a little deeper.  If a company has both a green cleaning and a traditional cleaning program, then one must be more effective then the other one, right?  But which one?  And if they are different, one of them must be more profitable for the building service contractor.  And one of them must be more expensive for the customer to buy.  And the green cleaning program must also be harder to implement, or manage, or maintain?  And if it’s not less effective, more expensive, or harder to implement, manager or maintain, then why are there still two different options for customers to choose.  I have a hard time believing that a company that is committed to minimizing environmental harm would offer the “more polluting” option alongside the “less polluting” option.

Maybe the companies that are offering both options are not really committed to minimizing healthier environments?  Or maybe they don’t believe that green cleaning is here to stay.  Either way, I’d be wary.

If you haven’t guessed by now, Eat My Dust only cleans one way, and it’s in an environmentally friendly manner.

Green janitorial is the low hanging fruit, and should be at the top of any company’s green or sustainability initiatives because …

• it does not have a large initial upfront investment like solar (excluding newer lease programs, of course) or cogeneration
• there is a minimal, one-time effort to replace a non-green vendor with a green one
• it is a set-it and forget-it system meaning you don’t have to constantly remind your employees to do something new or change their habits
• it improves indoor air quality
• it uses less energy and water (assuming a team based approach)
• it can have a positive impact on your bottom line because employees will be more productive (6% according to the Department of Energy)
• it reduces waste
• it uses green chemicals
• reduces maintenance and repair costs

If you, or your company, hasn’t considered green janitorial to replace your current services then it is time to seriously consider it. Even though it is too late to put this in place today, don’t wait until next Earth Day to make it happen.

Let me know how you or your company is celebrating Earth Day, and if green janitorial is on the list.

The world of janitorial is not only quite fascinating, but utterly important. What other profession, on a day-to-day basis, has this much responsibility for your mental and physical well-being? Janitors keep order, remove pollutants, create healthy indoor environments, and maintain the condition and value of real property. Have you thought lately about how your life would change without janitors? Piled up garbage, dirty toilets, and finger print smudges would be more common than a bad day on the stock market. On the flip side, there are many practices used by our competitors that aren’t exactly creating healthy indoor environments, either. We’ll cover these as well.

In addition to this blog, you can stay in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook. Why so many places to stay in touch? This blog will allow us to communicate in-depth about any topic. Twitter is our stream of conciousness, allowing us to relay our thoughts in 140 characters or less. And Facebook allows us to share links, events and other information with fans of Eat My Dust. There will be overlap in these areas, but one of these will speak to you more then the others and we invite you to follow us in that medium.

[1] - Greenwashing, the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly according to terrachoice’s great paper on The Six Sins of Greenwashing