It used to be that choosing and using cleaning chemicals was based on a balance between cost, effectiveness and safety. Today, advances in technology are giving managers more choices and improving chemical safety for cleaning workers, building occupants and the environment.

In the face of concern, complaints and sometimes lawsuits from building occupants and cleaning workers who say exposure to cleaning products has harmed them, managers are finding that they need to have a chemical plan that carefully considers how and why each chemical is used in a facility.

Managers also need to have a plan for disposal of used chemicals and other hazardous waste. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), universities and colleges have a serious level of environmental noncompliance, especially with hazardous waste management laws.

Recent state and federal investigation of a state university resulted in a complaint seeking $1.8 million in penalties, and an EPA inspection of another university resulted in an EPA complaint seeking $300,000 in penalties.

Chemical sensitivity

Kirk Campbell, director of maintenance and custodial services for Carleton College, North Field, MN, says the needs of students and staff with chemical sensitivities is becoming more of a concern for his department.

He says his custodial services department has switched to using as many water-based products as possible, but whenever they are going to use a product that has a strong smell, or may cause a reaction, they follow a notification procedure.

Two or three days before work is scheduled they post notice in affected areas indicating what work will be done, when and what products will be used. They also have to notify some students and staff individually.

Sponsored by EPA, the Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Project, based in San Francisco, is designed to help managers educate themselves and their staff about the chemicals they are using and recommend environmentally-preferable alternatives. Environmentally-preferable products are commonly defined as those that have less negative effects on human health or the environment when compared to other available products.

Through the project, Steven Lopez, building services supervisor for the city of San Jose, arranged for a consultant to come to his facility and complete a chemical review. Using product Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), the consultant helped Lopez evaluate chemicals in terms of both environmental impact and worker safety. Lopez says San Jose already had a commitment to using environmentally-preferable products, but the project gave him additional resources to find and try new products.

P2 and worker safety

The project is called "pollution prevention" (P2) and that is the EPA's focus, but Thomas Barron, lead consultant for the Janitorial Products Project, says the project emphasizes what is important to the cleaning managers and workers involved in the project: worker safety. There is no contradiction, He says, because safer products also tend to have better environmental consequences.

Ledie Bond, president of safe chemical manufacturer EarthSafe & Wellness Technologies, Ashville, NC, agrees there has been a shift in alternative chemical manufacturing from emphasizing environmental benefits to focusing on safety issues.

Just as building occupants are more concerned with indoor air quality issues, cleaning workers are more aware of and concerned about the effects of working with cleaning chemicals.

And Barron says workers have reason to be concerned. Fifteen seconds is the amount of time cleaners have to act if they get acidic toilet cleaner or floor stripper in their eyes. They run the risk of nerve damage or blindness if they don't flush the affected eye with water right away, says Barron. That means, custodial crews need to know what chemicals they are using and what to do if they get a dangerous compound on their skin or in their eyes.

"Our first task was to determine what janitors know, what they don't know and what they should know about the chemical products they use," says Barron who initiated the Janitorial Products project with a $100,000 grant from EPA after his work for a county hospital revealed that a number of products that might affect the health of sensitive patients were being used for facility cleaning and maintenance.

It raised the question of how often dangerous chemicals are used, says Barron, and "we determined that people in the cleaning and maintenance industry are using chemicals that can harm them, and weren't aware of the dangers."

Avoiding accidents

Often, cleaners don't find out what they're up against until it's too late. While some have it all sorted out and are handling their chemicals properly, says Barron, there are others who don't.

"The proof is in the accidents," he says.

A review of Washington state workers' compensation claims from 1995-97 reveals that each year as many as 6 in every 100 custodians experience a chemical related mishap serious enough to miss work and qualify for compensation.

Forty percent of those injuries involve the eyes, while 35 percent involve the skin, and another 12 percent are respiratory related. The average lost time for each injured worker is 18 hours, says Barron, and four hours for a supervisor who may have to file paper work and transport the worker to a hospital. The average cost of chemical-related injuries ranges from $600 to $1,000.

Barron says two things can be done to reduce the risk of such incidents. First, wear gloves and goggles. "Buy yourself time," he says.

Secondly, make sure the person mixing chemicals is trained and qualified. "These products are most dangerous in their concentrated form," says Barron.

A qualified mixer also needs to be trained in how to respond to any problems. Begin with the product's MSDS. Barron admits they can be hard to understand, even for engineers like him, and some don't tell the whole story, but they are the place to start.

If you still have questions about the product, "find help from the product vendor, the manufacturer or your local county health department," says Barron.

The Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Project has reviewed hundreds of chemical cleaning products used by professionals and placed them in three categories: Products that people shouldn't use; products that should be used with extreme care; and products that require only routine care.

Forty-six percent of the professional products reviewed require only routine care to prevent skin or eye irritation and a deterioration of indoor air quality, says Barron.

Products that can blind or cause severe skin damage and require extreme care make up 35 percent of the products reviewed. These include acidic toilet cleaners, floor finish strippers with zinc, and heavy-duty degreasers.

Do the alternatives work?

Cleaning and facility managers are committed to worker safety, but they are also responsible for maintaining high standards for their facilities. Bond says there is still the perception that alternative products may not work as well as traditional ones. Managers also worry that safer chemicals will be more expensive, requiring them to cut something else in order to stay within budget.

Industry experts and the managers who are using safer chemicals agree that for most cleaning tasks there are safe products that will do the job.

"Overall, the non-toxic cleaners that we used produced sparkling clean results and our custodial staff experienced fewer physical reactions when applying cleaning products," says Mark Galloway, building superintendent of the St. Paul City Hall Annex, who participated in a pilot project that tested the performance of ten non-toxic cleaning products on typical office building surfaces such as glass, toilets, sinks,walls, floors, and furniture.

The custodial staff of the city hall annex -- a 65-year-old building -- found that six of the ten alternative products worked as well as, or better than, the products they replaced. Moreover, custodial staff specifically noticed a reduction in the fumes that sometimes cause physical reactions such as lightheaded sensations and tightening of the chest.

There are still some products that are hard to replace. For example, Barron says there isn't a good substitute for floor stripper, but managers can reduce the risks of using strippers by stripping floors only when necessary, rather than according to an arbitrarily-determined schedule.

In cases where a potentially harmful chemical must be used there is much that can be done to reduce risks. Workers should be trained in chemical handling, use and disposal, and managers need to understand what chemicals they are using, how they work with equipment and processes, and what their particular cleaning needs are.

Because there are not yet standards for what terms like environmentally-friendly and biodegradable mean, Bond says managers have to be informed consumers. She suggests that when choosing products managers look at:

• Toxicity: What kind of impact does the product have on human health? Is it poisonous through contact with the skin or mucus membranes, by being inhaled or by being ingested? How many VOCs does the product produce? How high are threshold amounts (the amount of the product that will produce an effect)?
• Biodegradability: Are these claims backed by scientific testing? Under what circumstances and in what timeframe will the product degrade? Bond says the optimum amount of time is 15 to 30 days.
• Interactions with other chemicals: Will this product have an adverse reaction with other products you are using? Does it bring your overall accumulation of certain chemicals over threshold amounts? (Many individual products have chemicals that do not expose users to significant effects by themselves, but when combined with other chemicals the total cumulative exposure is harmful.)
• Chemistry: How does the product work? What does it use as a solvent or surfactant? Issues like emulsification, the ability to hold particles in suspension, have an effect on cleaning process and final disposal of the product. Products with emulsifiers can make it more difficult to process wastewater.

Advances in technology have made the prices of safer products far more competitive than in the past, but they do still tend to cost more than traditional products. Lopez says he anticipates an additional cost of five percent for the safer products his facility is turning to, but says the benefits outweigh the cost. "It is more than worth the increased cost for worker safety and the reduction in odors," says Lopez.

Before, during and after a chemical product change, workers need to be trained about the chemicals they will be using. Distributors may also be good resources for initial training in using and handling new products. Michael Priestap, director of environmental services for the East Tennessee Children's Hospital, Knoxville, TN, stresses that training has to be specific to the facility and operation. He suggests doing hands-on training as well as classroom or video training.

It may also reduce complaints if occupants know that custodial departments are using products designed not to negatively effect indoor air quality and human health.

Hazardous waste

Chemicals are not only an issue when they are being stored or used, but also during and after disposal. Campbell says that one of his priorities is for products to be safe for the environment after they leave his facility. "You can't always assume that things are going through a [treatment] plant, depending on your location," he says.

When a chemical is flammable, toxic or corrosive, it is considered hazardous, and should be disposed of according to hazardous waste laws. While the disposal of cleaning chemicals has been largely unaddressed, Barron suspects it is an "issue that lawmakers are going to address within the next 10 years."

Sooner than that, the EPA launched a hazardous waste compliance initiative in Arizona August 17. Designed to bring Arizona colleges and universities into compliance with federal environmental laws, the effort includes compliance assistance activities and stepped up inspections and audits of universities.

"We all agree that the health of students and others living on or near campuses is very important," says Julie Anderson, EPA's Western Region hazardous waste director. "The savings realized in sound environmental management can actually help hold down facility operation costs and help create an image for higher education institutions that applicants find desirable."

In addition to mandating compliance with environmental and safety regulations, the government is encouraging the development of new chemical technologies. August 12, President Clinton signed an executive order promoting bioenergy and biobased products, made from renewable sources such as agricultural products or byproducts. Cleaning chemicals are now being developed from such sources as sugar derivatives, natural fatty acids and amino acids and vegetable and fruit products.

Cleaning and facility managers often report that as much as cleaning workers want to use safer chemicals, old habits are hard to break. Bond says that finally it will take government regulation to remove some hazardous chemicals from use. But Lopez says he doesn't expect many problems as he changes over to safer products. His test group likes the new products, "And I know if they like it, so will the rest of my staff," he says.

For more information on the topic of this article, please go to www.cmmonline.com and use the following keywords: chemicals, chemical safety, hazmat training.