By Adam Doling, assistant news editor
Schools around the country are taking a serious stance on the issue of school hygiene, and many are making efforts to implement aspects of "green cleaning" into their cleaning procedures.
Rochelle Davis, executive director, Healthy Schools Campaign, Chicago, spoke with CM e-News Daily/CMM Online regarding the organization's efforts to promote a healthier overall clean in the 600 schools in the Chicago Public Schools system.
"We are working on a green cleaning initiative with the Chicago public schools," said Davis. "That is what we have focused on at this point, as we've been talking to them for a year working to put together a task force that had its first meeting last March.
"From October through the end of January, we've had pilot projects at about 10 schools. In February, we will see how that went and move forward. The Healthy Schools Campaign's main message is to make schools environmentally healthy places to learn and work."
One of the issues that the Healthy Schools Campaign is looking at is how schools are cleaned, including what types of chemicals are used.
"We kind of approached it as how do you focus on cleaning that is more focused on cleaning for health than how do you reduce the toxic exposures that come from some of the more toxic cleaning products," said Davis.
- The organization has worked with the Chicago Public Schools System on a number of issues in the past, and had approached them with the idea of working with them to look at the cleaning procedures that the schools use.
- The Healthy Schools Campaign has brought together individuals in the public health industry and cleaning professionals to discuss with the schools the benefits of adopting a "green cleaning" program.
- Although the organization is not conducting any scientific studies, Davis said, the pilot projects that it has started with some of the schools are helping it to gather data about the cleaning procedures used in the school system.
"We've asked all the schools to start with a chemical inventory of the kinds of products they were already using, and then to experiment with new products that meet the different standards, and then to identify what they thought about them," said Davis. "The results of that will end up helping advise the program, so it's not a scientific kind of study, but it's obviously trying to look at the kind of issues we need to address."
- Davis said that the group is very interested in looking at cleaning techniques, equipment and procedures that dramatically reduce the need for cleaning chemicals.
"It's not just a focus on the chemicals, but a focus on the whole process so that you end up reducing how many chemicals you need," said Davis.
The program is proving to be a hot issue thus far, as Davis said that, "I get calls from schools from actually around the country and in Canada who have heard that we are doing this, who ask me how to describe how we work with the school district… I certainly do get a feeling that a number of people are looking at this."
For example, the Great Neck (NY) Record reported January 2 that the local board of education, acting under the recommendation of School District Safety Officer David Kincaid, has proposed a new policy on the exclusion of petrochemical-based products from school buildings.
The policy states that it applies to art supplies, cleaning supplies, biology and chemical laboratory products, paints, and such, according to the newspaper.
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