30 Days left before your Illinois school needs to clean green according to the Green Schools Act.
How are your schools doing ?
First of all please don’t think of me as an expert in this arena. I am not. Yes I clean green and I observe greenness around me. I practice green in many ways and I have a bit of a green reputation locally.
I am not on the inside track of this, just making some observations and wonderings.
I find the gobbly gook legal schmegal dialog around the Illinois Green Schools Act interesting as all heck. Illinois is the 2nd state to pass a LAW that says all schools need to clean green. A draft was written to guide this law and was available to the public for comment. That 30 day period of time is now gone by. I wonder how the heck the public was supposed to know about it. I am pretty public about some things and cleaning green in schools interests me - yet somehow I missed that one. Is the publics feedback actually taken into consideration?
In February 2008 a final document was posted and schools now have 90 days to go green. Illinois schools are now mandated by law to go green.
Is this actually going to happen ?
The law allows schools to use their existing chemicals until they are depleted. The way my mind works is what stops any school from stock piling on the toxic stuff either because of low cost or indifference. I don’t mean to be a skeptic here, but have you ever talked to the purchasers at the school district level? I have. Most don’t give a hoot about going green.
Further, the clean green act also will excuse a school – excuse me, will allow a school to forgo green cleaning if it isn’t economically feasible - doesn’t that immediately imply that cleaning green is going to be expensive??
OH and areas such as food service, child care, nursing and PT facilities and swimming pools all have to follow old laws instead. These areas will forever remain toxic.
uh, to me that implies that green clean isn’t good enough in these areas? Or better yet that green clean isn’t effective therefor stick with the chemicals where there is food, babies and sick people?
Did you know by law a child care facility has to have bleach on it’s shelf at all times, yet it says nothing in it’s laws about using that bleach for cleaning – just be sure its around when the inspector stops by – we bypassed that detail when we were using a non-toxic germicide in a pre-school facility where Kate attended
The “G” Pilot Program at Congress Park School – District 102
We became part of CP in 1996 when my first divorce was final. My son was in 3rd grade – my daughter in kindergarten. The district nurse found out I sold a particular brand of non-toxic cleaning products and asked if I’d supply her 5 district nurse’s offices with a germicide. I was delighted. This purchase was not typical in a public school environment, but she personally knew the product and she knew it’s efficacy and so she was the one to foster it into the system. I had befriended the school nurse and she and I came up with an idea for a project that would have teachers have access to that same germicide in the classroom. I had to get the districts janitorial purchaser’s approval. It took many treats of dunkin donuts coffee to get this old curmudgeon of a man to agree to the small purchase for our project, but he agreed and we ran the G project for 2 years. My introduction to commercial sales. Interesting how business gets done. Isn’t it?
The product needed to be diluted. I donated a spray bottle for each classroom, labeling and my time to organize the program. The product diluted loses it’s germicide effect after 30 days so we also had to implement a system for gathering bottles, emptying and refilling them. It was actually a school wide effort. There were weekly ” G ” days for cleaning desks and other classroom surfaces. It became a campaign similar to washing your hands. When a classroom would turn in their bottles to refill, the school nurse would note if it was fully used or not.
When teachers actually followed the G program ( G is for Germs by the way ) meaning they used the stuff regularly - the nurse saw a very specific correlation with attendance. Classrooms kept clean had less absences. In other words illness decreased.
This was HUGE!
Unfortunately the pilot program lost it’s momentum when the old man purchaser died and the new guy told me it was a conflict of interest to purchase from a district parent. May the G Project rest in peace.
I felt a huge kerplunk when 2 yrs of effort went down the drain. Politics, unnoticed effort and apathy had me focus more on the nutrition part of my business instead. The district nurse left, the other nurse went onto teaching and the in house school custodian who was especially helpful, threw his hands up and said I hey I do what my boss tells me.
In my current line of non-toxic products only one (see product brief ) is GS-37 green seal certified or fits the current industrial guidelines listed by the healthy schools campaign. It is a surfactant, and does a darn dandy job cleaning. It is multi-use, concentrated and very economical. Many of the other products listed are hydrogen peroxide based, an acidic agent, but not a surfactant – so not by design something that breaks dirt apart. One layer of this particular green seal certification has to do mostly with it’s packaging for industrial usage.
Hmmmmm. I wonder how well these hydrogen peroxide products work? I can imagine if they didn’t work very well that you’d have many a grumbly custodian cursing the green movement.
Wouldn’t you want a product that’s green and actually cleans?
The product I am talking about is a gallon of concentrated green clean. If used for typical household use this size would last the average family 16 years! Ha!!
I also have a 16 oz version – it’s the one I’d recommend for your home. It makes an awesome fund raiser for schools who want to do something to raise money and green awareness. I’ll be writing about that in the next few days.
Please share this information with your school or better yet those prompting or making purchase decisions for their schools green initiatives.
general info so
urced from healthy schools campaign
custodial broom flickr image credit
Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites: Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?
