Cleaning up Companies meet demand for enviro-friendly products, services By KEITH LORIA

Cleaning up
Companies meet demand for enviro-friendly products, services

When it’s time for an office building, school or hospital to seek out cleaning or janitorial services, these days it’s not so much about cleaning, as it is about greening.

Green cleaning encompasses all indoor activities typically required to clean commercial, public and industrial buildings and most Westchester and Hudson Valley cleaning companies are making changes by switching to green cleaning products and equipment, adopting new cleaning procedures and introducing green paper and plastic products.

“An important step in helping the environment is by offering safer alternatives to standard janitorial cleaning systems and programs and I think more people are aware of green now,” said Giovanni Rodriguez, vice president of the Valley Cottage-based One Source Maintenance Inc., which serves towns throughout Rockland and Westchester counties. “We are constantly looking for ways to become more environmentally friendly with our products and services. Our commitment to green cleaning is more than our business, it is our mission to transform the cleaning industry.”

Building owners and managers are now beginning to demand that their buildings be cleaned and maintained in a way that is consistent with this newfound “green” thinking.

“A revolution is under way in the cleaning industry,” said Arthur B. Weissman, president of Green Seal Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment. “More and more institutions realize that cleaning with environmentally responsible chemicals and processes is essential, both to create a healthy workplace for children and adults and to avoid additional contamination that may cause diseases such as asthma. In a matter of several years we should see a complete transformation to green cleaning.”

On Nov. 1, Port Chester-based Strauss Paper Co., which has offered paper cleaning and janitorial supplies throughout Westchester for more than 65 years, held a seminar looking at the impact, advancements and future of green cleaning on our environment.

“We thought it was important to educate our clientele on where the industry is going and what the standards are for what we call healthy buildings,” said Robert Tamilio Jr., vice president of sales and marketing. “It’s about sustaining for the long term. It’s a way to have CEOs come in and see what products and paper are more environmentally friendly so they are aware of what’s going on … we want them to understand that their purchases will affect their children’s children.”

Strauss does its part to help the environment by offering “site service,” where they visit a business and analyze what paper and chemical products are in use and recommend healthier choices and recyclable materials. Some of the products they offer to do this include toilet paper without a core (saving excess garbage), larger rolls of paper towels and hydrogen-peroxide-based chemicals.

“The hardest part is products cost a little more money than product services we had offered in the past so when people talk green it’s not only green for the environment, it’s green money and it does cost a little more,” Tamilio said. “Building owners and school districts and hospitals do need to spend a little more because by spending the money, the employees will be much healthier.”

Internally, the company is also doing its part. It is on schedule to become a paperless office in the next six to eight months, it has changed over to efficient lighting in the warehouse and it rewards employees with $500 for those who buy eco-cars.

Another company involved in green cleaning is the Green Janitor, which operates using green products and chemicals. With offices in Poughkeepsie and Kingston, it cleans facilities throughout Ulster and Dutchess counties.

“We only use products that do not pollute and promote a healthy work and living environment,” said Jonathan Beever, co-owner of the company. “One of the things we do is wash with cloths that we wash in a green solution and use again, so we minimize paper products in this way. We also use equipment that is more environmentally sound.”

GCI Custom Cleaning has been serving Ulster and Dutchess for more than 20 years and is concerned with the environment. In addition to using safer chemicals, reusable cloths and more efficient equipment, they have recently started cleaning with a better extraction system.

“We use a dry extraction system that works on carpets or tile floors and this is a very powerful vacuum multilayered with filters and proven to be much safer than cleaning with water, where the dirt gets dried deeper into the carpets,” said Gary Bellows, vice president of business services. “In our opinion, if you can use a more natural product with no chemicals, it will help people with breathing issues and other respiratory issues.”

Over at Century Building Services in White Plains, owner Marilyn Graham knows the importance of using safer chemicals. “We service schools with handicapped children and so forth and we always have to be concerned with product,” she said. “We have given it a great deal of thought and we try to use environmentally friendly products whenever we can.”

AMB is a national cleaning company that acquired White Plains-based Colin Service Systems Inc. in 2005 to fortify its mark in the region and serves hundreds of buildings throughout Westchester, Connecticut and the Hudson Valley.

“We’ve been concerned with green for some time and our customers have been asking for it at least for the past three to four years,” said Mary Ellen Weiner, ABM’s Northeast regional manager. “To accomplish this we have developed ABM Green Care, which is specifically designed to meet current requirements being set by Green Seal. We have our own line of green products — glass cleaners, waxes, clippers — and we put them in play as much as possible.”

The company has shown its forward thinking by doing things like using bamboo mop handles, hooking up their own dispense systems to conserve water and only working with Supercoach vacuums, which absorbs more of the dust and molecules.