After eight years of implementing environmental conscious cleaning practices, Western’s Academic Custodial Services Department received an honorable mention for the 2008 Green Cleaning Award, which is sponsored by the American School and University magazine.

This is the second year the magazine has given this award, which recognizes educational institutions for exemplary green cleaning programs that not only stand out from other schools, but have support from the institution and people implementing the program, according to the American School and University magazine.

An expert jury of judges chose a Grand Award winner and an Honorable Mention in each of three categories: school districts, colleges and universities, according to the American School and University magazine. Western received the honorable mention in the universities category.

Green cleaning is cleaning that doesn’t harm the environment or the health of the people doing the cleaning, said Michael Smith, Western's custodial services supervisor. It’s a low impact way of cleaning that uses the least amount of unnatural products to get the job done, Smith said.

“This is the first national recognition our university has received for our effort,” said Smith, who implemented green cleaning practices with the custodial staff. “We were one of three schools who got an honorable mention out of the whole nation, which is great because this award is a competition and our efforts are paying off.”

Western applied for the award last year and didn’t receive any acknowledgement, which came as a surprise to the custodial department, said Seth Vidaña, coordinator for Western’s Office of Sustainability. Western’s custodial department has always shown leadership when it came to green cleaning and to not be recognized made them look into what the university needed to do to achieve recognition, he said.

“As it turns out, it wasn’t really about our cleaning techniques because those were right on," Vidaña said. "It was all about our presentation."

In terms of Western's green cleaning practices, the Academic Custodial Services has considered themselves a “green department” for close to five years but has been using green cleaning techniques for eight years, Smith said.

The custodial department follows a strict cleaning protocol and contracts with a company called Coastwide Laboratories, Smith said. This company guides the custodial department in improving its sustainability programs and provides the university with Corporate Express’ Sustainable Earth products, he said.

Smith began implementing these ideas for cost and health reasons because he wanted to eliminate as much chemical use as possible. Green cleaning is the future of cleaning technology and he wanted Western to be on board, he said.

“Essentially we are trying to get back to the basics, which is cleaning that would only require water,” Smith said.

“Throughout history, our culture has become dependent on synthetic products that work but harm our environment. The cavemen learned how to clean using water and other natural items, and I know we can get back to that.”

The foundation of green cleaning is the use of fabric with micro-fiber technology, Smith said. The fabric is generally made of 80 percent nylon and 20 percent polyester. These fabrics are blended together and the fibers are split.

There are about 90,000 splits per square inch and these splits create a vast surface of thread that picks up a lot of dirt and soil when the cloth is damp. The only thing needed to clean with micro-fiber cloths is water, and water-only cleaning is the ultimate goal of green cleaning programs, Smith said.

The custodial staff was introduced to micro-fiber cloths and trained on how to use them, Smith said. The department now has certain colors of cloths for certain jobs so the staff doesn’t cross contaminate any bacteria or germs, he said.

Despite all the new technology, occasionally cleaning jobs do require cleaning products, which is when Academic Custodial Services leans on Coastwide Labs and other companies to provide them with sustainable products free of oil-based chemicals and volatile organic compounds, Smith said.

“It’s very interesting when cleaning products use words like natural, biodegradable and earth friendly,” Smith said.

“For the most part, these are big phony words because green cleaning has become so popular that these titles are getting put on products that aren’t green. It has become a marketing tool for companies and they aren’t being honest.” The only way to be completely positive something is eco-friendly is to look at the ingredients, Smith said.

Heather Dodd, day shift supervisor of the Academic Custodial Service, is one of the people who investigates and helps Western choose products that are truly eco-friendly. A big problem with green cleaning is people think the products don’t work, but they still kill germs, disinfect and kill diseases like MRSA and hepatitis, Dodd said.

“These are products that we’ve researched and proved to work the same way and do the job without harming the users,” Dodd said.

Two big changes the custodial department has put into effect on Western’s campus are compostable paper towels and trash liners, Dodd said. The paper towels used on campus are 75 percent recyclable, Dodd said. Eventually, they will be taken to a designated dumpster where they will then be either turned into compost for yards or taken to be recycled, she said.

The custodial staff should receive all the credit for the changes in cleaning methods, Smith said.

While they were initially a little gun-shy toward adapting to a complete green cleaning and sustainability protocol, the custodial staff is now completely loyal to the products and cleaning techniques, he said.

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