Chemicals: Getting more (Green) Bang for the Buck

Company Website

Schools throughout North America have been some of the leading trendsetters when it comes to implementing a Green cleaning program.  Today, several states have instituted directives that require cleaning products meet specific criteria with the goal of reducing cleaning’s potentially negative impact on the health of school staff and students and the environment.

In Canada, the University of Manitoba has been “going” Green for a number of years—long before it was fashionable in other parts of North America.

“I had personal reasons for going Green,” says Jasmin Ismailovic, the university’s Director of Care Taking Services.  “I have long been concerned about the health of our nearly 30,000 students, 6,000 employees, and the environment.”

Because of its early implementation of Green cleaning, Ismailovic views his school as a more than a trendsetter, but an innovator among educational facilities in developing an effective Green cleaning program.  However, he is the first to admit it has not always been an easy process.  According to Ismailovic, finding cleaning chemicals that have been certified Green has not been a problem for years.  “But, finding [Green] chemicals that perform effectively—as good as the conventional products we are trying to replace—has not been easy,” he remarks.

To address this challenge, Ismailovic heeded the advice of Mike Sawchuk, vice president of sales and marketing for Enviro-Solutions and Charlotte Products, both manufacturers of certified, proven Green cleaning products.  With Sawchuk’s guidance, the university’s custodial crew created a “cleaning challenge,” which tested the performance and effectiveness of four different Green cleaning brands against each other and also to the conventional, non-Green products the school had used in the past.

The products were tested and compared for more than a year.  Often, cleaning professionals would use two different products side-by-side while cleaning restrooms, food service areas, floors, and other surfaces to compare them “on the spot” so to speak.  At the end of the testing period, Ismailovic and his crew began comparing notes.

“What we found is that some of the products simply did not perform very well,” he says.  “Others performed [adequately], but not as well as expected or near as effective as our old [non-Green] cleaning chemicals.  Even worse, some left unpleasant odors that were not only bothersome, but irritated my crew.”

Another problem the cleaning challenge revealed is that while some manufacturers had one or two Green cleaning chemicals that performed well, few had a complete product line of products that performed well.  This is important because the university’s housekeeping department saves time and money working with one vendor, instead of several vendors.

However, after analyzing the results of the cleaning challenge, one company’s products did surface to the top.  According to the results, this manufacturer’s products performed as well as, if not better than, the conventional products they were designed to replace.  Further, the department was pleased to find that this would allow them to work with just one vendor.

The manufacturer selected: Enviro-Solutions.  Enviro-Solutions has been manufacturing environmentally responsible cleaning products for more than 15 years.  Most of their products have been proven-Green and certified by the leading certification organizations. 

Additionally, they have been performance tested, proven to meet the cleaning needs of the most demanding facilities, and are overall cost competitive when compared to  traditional products.  This has been substantiated by the fact that many major customers have been using these same products for more than ten years.

“I’m sorry to say it, but we actually found that many Green cleaning chemicals simply don’t make the grade when it comes to cleaning performance,” adds Ismailovic.  “But, Enviro-Solutions has a straight-A report card from our department.”