By Matthew Nelson, Facilities Director

In honor of Earth Day this week -- we'd like to share some updates the PACT custodial staff has worked with a couple of different reps in multiple areas of the school in an attempt to use greener options at PACT. Here are some highlights:

Eco-Friendly Cleaning Supplies

All of our routinely used chemicals are now set up through Buckeye's Eco Proportioning Program as of Spring Break of this year. Of course not all of our chemicals can be Green Seal Certified, such as disinfectants, due to the nature of the chemical (it kills bacteria and organisms).

• Our general cleaners, disinfectants, sanitizers, kitchen chemicals, toilet bowl cleaners, floor cleaners, glass cleaners, carpet cleaning/extracting chemicals, graffiti removing chemicals and so on are all part of this Eco Program.

• Many of these chemicals are Green Seal Certified, while others are UL Listed.

So for every chemical to be a part of this program, the packaging and proportion is the main focus. The SDS sheet shows the precautionary statements for the concentrated chemical. No student (or even staff members that are not custodial [not even custodial if they follow proper procedure]) will make contact with the concentrated chemical. The SDS for some of these chemicals have the signal word "danger", due to its super high concentration. 

This high concentration is part of what allows it to be "eco-friendly". Being so highly concentrated, means we buy less plastic bags of it. We then take these highly concentrated bags, and dilute it down (a lot) into what we have in the spray bottles, buckets or machines. This creates less plastic waste. The highly concentrated chemical is in a small 1.25 L bag, but is then diluted down with water to make spray bottles or fill buckets. In the case of our E15 cleaner, the 1.25L bag dilutes to 86 quarts (spray bottles) of diluted usable cleaner.

Hand Soap

The hand soap we have been using is something I worked out through the same company last year.

• This hand soap is biodegradable, free of all dyes, and also "Green Seal Certified". The dispensing and packaging for this uses similar proportioning/packaging standards as the Eco Program mentioned above. 

• You can dispense soap into your hand 12,498 times before the 1250ml cartridge in the dispenser needs to be replaced.

• These have a built in system that stops them from leaking. So all 1250ml make it onto somebody's hand (with proper usage) and not on the floor. This means somebody could pump it half way, only using half the recommended amount, and it will suck the rest back up into the dispenser to nothing leaks.

Paper Towel Dispensers

Over Spring Break we worked with a couple companies to get all new dispensers throughout the building for our paper towels.

• Our old dispensers ran off batteries, and would dispense much more product than needed.

• The new dispensers we installed throughout the building are no longer automated, and are expected to save over 300,000 feet of paper towel waste every year (not to mention all the batteries saved).

• On top of that, when we took away the automated dispensers, we made sure that the mechanical ones we installed were ADA compliant. ADA Accessibility guidelines state "there should be no tight pinching, or twisting of the wrist and paper towels should be easily dispensed with less than 5 pounds of force from the dispenser". These dispensers hold up to that ADA guideline.

• The paper products are constructed with a perfect blend of pre- and post-consumer waste paper to provide quality and performance. These roll towels are 100% recycled, green, and exceed EPA guidelines for post-consumer waste paper content.

Can Liners

We have been testing new can liners (bags for trash and recycling bins) through the winter. We finally settled on Gateway Liners R-Spec liners. Gateway TrueSpec Liners use less plastic to produce stronger, yet thinner liners that take up less space. The R-Spec liners we use take up 47% less landfill space than Post-Consumer liners, and 36% less landfill space than standard liners.