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How GS-42 Helps Protect Vulnerable Populations

By Cheryl Baldwin
 
Vulnerable populations represent people who are more sensitive than most to chemicals, dust and/or other environmental factors that might pose a risk to human health. These may include children, pregnant women, asthmatics, and other persons with heightened sensitivities or susceptibilities.
 
According to “A National Population Study of the Prevalence of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities," published in the Archives of Environmental Health, Volume 59: Number 6, June 2004:
 
“…hypersensitivity to low levels of common chemicals is a widespread phenomenon in the American population. It is widely distributed across racial/ethnic, age, and educational groups.  Of the 11.2 percent of respondents who experience chemical hypersensitivity, 66.7 percent describe their symptoms as either severe or moderately severe, indicating that chemical hypersensitivity poses a significant public health problem.”  
Also, children’s physiology differs from adults in ways that could result in greater health risks from chemical exposures. They have a higher ratio of skin surface to body weight. Children eat, drink, and inhale more in proportion to their body weight than adults. Their metabolic pathways may also differ from those of an adult, which may limit their ability to detoxify chemicals. At the same time, while children grow, their neurological, immune and other body systems are still developing and exposure to toxic chemicals could more easily damage those systems, sometimes irreversibly.
 
For similar reasons, pregnant women need greater protection because developing fetuses can be affected by even tiny exposures to environmental agents or chemicals, especially those — called endocrine disrupters — known to mimic hormones. Conversely, asthmatics may experience attacks where airborne environmental triggers are present (pollen, fumes from cleaning products, dust from vacuuming, etc.) in amounts that may or may not affect others.
 
For these reasons, GS-42 requires that cleaning services also be sensitive — to the needs of the more vulnerable occupants of the buildings they clean.
 
Initially, this means communicating with the customer, managers and people working in the building to discern who may be at risk then taking steps to help protect them.
 
There are four basic steps to comply with GS-42’s requirement protecting vulnerable persons:
 

1.    Schedule daily cleaning activities to avoid exposure of vulnerable populations to the cleaning process or contaminants.
2.    Adopt alternative cleaning practices that reduce airborne or other contaminants and minimize or make unnecessary the use of cleaning chemicals.
3.    Use cleaning products or chemicals in areas only where sufficient ventilation is present to allow contaminants or chemicals to dissipate before the area becomes repopulated. Provide additional ventilation through the use of blowers as needed.
4.    Conduct cleaning operations in a manner that prevents the transfer of impacts to other areas of the building that may contain vulnerable populations.

Meeting these requirements means developing and deploying tailored procedural training when servicing areas for vulnerable populations based on the Building-specific Green Cleaning Plan; with the result being better trained workers, a cleaner, healthier environment and an enhanced relationship between service provider and customer.


Cheryl Baldwin is Director of Standards for Green Seal, a non-profit organization devoted to environmental standard setting, product certification, and public education. For more information on GS-42 Certification and its components, visit www.greenseal.org/>www.greenseal.org or call 202-872-6400.

This article is part 8 in a series.