Environmental Impact
Green Cleaning >> Environmental Impact
Green Cleaning isn't just about purchasing the correct products or doing the correct procedures. It involves making an overall effort to clean while simultaneously protecting human health and the environment. Please spend as much as 90 percent of their time indoors, and some people, such as those in health care and military facilities, may spend 100 percent of their time indoors for extended periods. Cleaning is essential to creating a safe, healthy and productive work and living space for building's occupants.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the indoor air may be two to five times as polluted as the air outside, and its Science Advisory Board has consistently placed indoor air quality among the top five most important environmental issues.
Office Buildings
Can a building really cause people to get sick? YES. Building Related Illness or BRI is an indoor environment that actually causes illness in building occupants because of the contaminants they're exposed to. Respiratory complaints, asthma and allergies are just some of the illnesses caused by BRI. Many experts agree that a 2 percent increase in worker productivity is about average when a building implements effective improvements to the indoor environment.
Education Buildings (Schools, Colleges and Universities)
Children's vulnerability shows up as a skyrocketing increase in the asthma rate, increasing rates of childhood cancer, increasing behavioral and attention deficit disorders - some of which are attributed to contaminants from their environment. In schools the evidence is clear: Study after study demonstrates the impact of cleaning and indoor environmental quality on students' health, performance, attendance, and test scores. Asthma and allergic reactions have reached levels so alarming that they're regularly reported in major newspapers.
Healthcare Facilities
Here are some statistics about the health care industry
- There are more than 660,000 patients in our hospitals every day
- Full Time Equivalent staff numbers more than 4.5 million
- More than 100,000 trainees and volunteers are working in the hospitals
- Millions of people visit every day
- There are 3,350,000 residents of long-term care facilities
- And more than 2,000,000 FTE staff caring for them
Every year more than 2 million people contract a nosocomial infection, an infection or illness acquired in the hospital. Each year, more than 70,000 people (9 every hour) die in the United States as a result of a nosocomial infection. How does that statistic match up? Consider this:
- 50,000 die in automobile accidents
- 7,000 drown
- 5,000 die of burns
Many nosocomial infections can be traced to inadequate general cleaning practices, contaminated surfaces, and poor dust control but laying the bulk of the blame at the feet of the cleaning industry would be wrong.
