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ISSA Touts Featured Speakers for ISSA/INTERCLEAN

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Of Note...

Green Cleaning in Schools Passes In Connecticut
Connecticut schools must implement a green cleaning program for all school buildings and facilities on or before July 1, 2011, according to legislation (HB 6496) signed into law on June 2 by Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell. The new law requires schools to use "green cleaning products" that meet guidelines or environmental standards set by a "national or international environmental certification program" approved by the state Department of Administrative Services (DAS).

Historically, DAS has selected cleaning products certified by Green Seal in implementing Governor Rell's executive order that requires state agencies to procure and use green cleaning products. However, ISSA called for Connecticut to adopt a multi-faceted approach, including approving the following programs for purposes of defining environmentally preferable cleaning products: Green Seal, the U.S. EPA Design for the Environment—or DfE—Formulator Program, and EcoLogo.

Under the Connecticut green cleaning for schools law, each local and regional board of education must provide the staff of each school and, upon request, the parents or guardians of each child enrolled in each school with a written statement of the school district's green cleaning program. Such notice must include:

• The types and names of environmentally preferable cleaning products applied in schools
• The location of the application of such cleaning products in the school buildings and facilities
• The schedule of when such cleaning products are applied in the school buildings and facilities
• The statement, "No parent, guardian, teacher or staff member may bring into the school facility any consumer product intended to clean, deodorize, sanitize or disinfect."
• The name of the school administrator, or a designee, who may be contacted for further information.

Ask Your Peers...

How can cleaners communicate/maintain the perception of clean while preventing the spread of MRSA and other similar bacteria?

• First of all, it's important for everyone in the healthcare setting to practice proper hand washing or use hand sanitizer before/after contact with patients and/or surfaces. Also, most of the time Environmental Service staff didn't realized that disinfectant cleaner requires 10-minutes contact time to ensure its complete disinfectant, which means surfacse must be wet for 10 minutes, but I don't really see how that will work because of their time restrictions. Now there is new disinfectant available that offers 5-minutes contact time and it can come from a dilution system. Also there is other ready-to-use disinfectant cleaner that only needs 60-second contact time, which has made a big difference. —jtevs
• MRSA is not spread by the cleaning staff and in the majority of situations can not be contained by the cleaning staff.  The cleaning staff does it job once, the areas, surfaces etc.. are then contaminated and re-contaminated over and over again by occupants/users before the cleaning staff appears again. —Ken Galo
• Knowledge of proper disinfection is essential. Usually janitorial staff is on a tight schedule and most of the disinfectants require a ten-minute dwell time. Yet if you ever watch a cleaning person work, you will most likely notice that they spray it on and wipe it off.  —Dan Johnson

Click here to read additional feedback on this and other questions facing the industry.

Editors Note

State Of The Jan/San Industry: Managers Chime In
At the inception of the current recession, many experts stated that the cleaning industry was in fact recession-proof and that no matter how tough times got, schools, hospitals and other such facilities still needed cleaning. To an extent, this is true, but even the cleaning industry has felt the pinch of these current economic times.

In our annual Housekeeping Solutions Reader Survey, jan/san managers revealed substantial changes in spending, workforce and budgets from last year. Expectations for budget increases dropped by 50 percent and managers predicting budget cuts jumped substantially. Not surprising, managers accepted the fact that staffing would most likely not increase during the recession, but now many anticipate significant cuts — giving a new meaning to doing more with less.

Economic distress notwithstanding, the survey also addresses salient industry issues that managers can't afford to ignore. Touching on management priorities, staffing issues, budget expectations, green initiatives and purchasing priorities, the responses provide a well-rounded outlook at the jan/san industry and a benchmarking tool for facility managers.