Anabec's Summary of CIRI's - Green Cleaning Symposium
Posted by Paul Chopra on Tue, May 03, 2011 @ 12:57 PM
Recently Anabec, Inc. attended The Cleaning Industry Research Institute International (CIRI) interactive cleaning symposium titled "Green Cleaning & Science" held in Atlanta on April 27-29, 2011. The program was focused on the science and research needed to underpin green cleaning, its efficacy, performance, green labeling, impact on health and hygiene, plus their economic and business implications.
Various experts and stakeholders from all sides of the issue, presented brief talks and then participated in roundtable style discussions, taking questions from the attendees.
An excerpt from the CIRI Board of Directors on their Green Cleaning Position sums up what I feel is the most important issue regarding green cleaning: “It is imperative that the focus be on cleaning green, that is cleaning first, cleaning for health and hygiene, as well as cleaning in an environmentally preferable manner.”
A commonly held belief and topic at the symposium was that “green” cleaning chemicals do not work as well as conventional cleaning chemicals. While there was agreement on this issue among some attendees and stories of green cleaner failure abounded, there was little scientific evidence to back this up. There seems to be a need / opportunity for a study around this issue.
The highlight of the symposium for me was the presentation of preliminary data from an ongoing study, funded in part by CIRI, presented by Dr. Richard Shaughnessy of the University of Tulsa. The study’s goal is to define a clean standard for the industry in K-12 schools. Preliminarily the study shows that the effectiveness of cleaning has a lot to do with the cleaning process and the measurement system (testing) is very important to determining the outcome. Additional work on this standard continues. I feel a standard of cleanliness is critical to determining if “green” cleaners are effective replacements for traditional cleaners.
A disappointment to me was that green cleaning was never defined in so far as chemicals are concerned. One green certification organization talked about the lack of volatile or semi-volatile organic compounds released into the environment, another talked about the impact on human health, still another consultant quoted Bill Clinton from a 1992 executive order “the use of products and services that reduce the health and environmental impacts compared to similar products and services used for the same purpose.” I don’t know about you but those definitions aren’t doing it for me!
As the conference concluded the major concern for me was the apparent lack of consistency between certification organizations and important players in the marketplace. There are several organizations, each of which approaches defining a “green” cleaner differently, using standards, inspections and testing methods that are specific to that organization. This lack of agreement and standardization within the certification organization will serve to only stall the green cleaning movement and continue to foster confusion in the marketplace.
Anabec's is a proponent of environmental sustainability and will continue to approach our product development and manufacturing with our environmental consciousness in the forefront. As far as going forward with "green certification" of our product line we are going to wait and see where the market forces take the issue. We will continue to be involved in CIRI and intend to support the institute so that they can continue to do the important work of defining clean.