News > February 28, 2008

By Jacob Bathanti | Staff writer

The university’s pursuit of a greater degree of environmental sustainability is taking another step forward this semester: the greening of a wide range of cleaning products ranging from paper towels to floor wax.

click to enlarge

In doing so, the university is moving towards attaining the elusive “Triple Bottom Line”: not only the bottom line of economic vitality, but also environmental sensitivity and social justice.

While the university has seen a blossoming of environmental consciousness in the last couple of years, some of the changes have not been immediately intuitive.

Paper towels do not really intrude upon one’s consciousness as an environmental issue.

However, given the amount of paper product the university goes through in a semester, switching to 100 percent recycled products makes a significant difference.

Facilities management is in fact making this transition with paper towels and toilet paper.

Another transformation hitting bathrooms across campus is the introduction of foam soap, instead of a liquid soap.

This saves water and chemicals and is also cost-effective. Financial savings are induced because the soap itself is less prone to overuse than are liquid soaps.

About a third of the campus has been covered in this ongoing replacement drive, and the campus is expected fully to change by the end of the semester.

If toilet paper is not on too many students’ minds, floor cleaners are probably even less so.

Yet a whole range of cleaning chemicals has been quietly swapped out, with a myriad of benefits for the university and university staff.

In essence, a full range of surface cleaners and disinfectants have been switched over to environmentally friendly products that are considerably less harsh than the products they replace.

While students won’t be able to make the distinction, says Assistant Custodial Services Manager Kelvin Green, it makes a massive difference to the custodians.

“We’re around it every day,” Green said, noting that the new products don’t emit fumes as did the old ones. “The response from the employees has been overwhelming.”

“They’re like ‘Wow. This really works.’”

The university also benefits financially from a more efficient and cost-effective delivery system put in place by the manufacturer, Spartan Chemical.

The chemicals are premixed, which makes them easier to work with, and reduces overuse.

And while comparable in price, they are significantly less harmful both to the environment and to the people that have to work with them.

The idea of “going green” in cleaning chemicals was introduced last year.

It has since been discussed intensively in facilities management.

Assistant VP for Facilities Management Jim Alty was a strong proponent of the changes, and, as the inquiries progressed, so was everyone else.

“The more we looked at it, the better it looked,” Peter Nachand, the manager for Supply and Procurement Services, said.

The new products are all “Green Seal Certified.” This means that their manufacture, use and disposal are all assessed by Green Seal, a DC-based non-profit which focuses on the environmental impact of industrial supplies.

This holistic approach is taken to ensure that the products are environmentally friendly at all points of their life-cycles.

Environmentally friendly, financially viable and a boon to the health of university employees, this new development embodies the ideal of the triple bottom line.

Something as mundane as cleaning product policy may fly under the radar of most students

However, this change in fact represents a significant step forward in the progressive greening and state of continuous sustainability of the university.