New Lead Custodian Greens Up Unity’s Clean-Up 

By Holli Cederholm, Sustainability Coordinator, Unity College
(Created: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 4:57 PM EST)

When lead custodian Keith Giles joined Unity College’s maintenance department this past summer, he was surprised to find that “America’s Environmental College” did not use recycled paper towels, and that only one green-certified cleaning product competed for shelf space with standard cleaning chemicals, like bleach and comet. And, he saw no reason why we couldn’t be more conscious of the environment in our cleaning habits.

Holli Cederholm, Sustainability Coordinator, Unity College
 
Formerly the Supervisor with Environmental Services at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Giles was used to considering cleaning services in terms of quality of life — for the surrounding people, and the greater environment.

“It’s a balancing act: the first thing you look for when you clean is the health and safety of the people, then you think about how green you can be,” said Giles.

From his previous experience and through a little bit of research Giles has found that considerations for the health of Unity’s community do not have to be sacrificed in making greener cleaning decisions. In fact, some of these eco-friendly cleaning products work better than more traditional products. For example, microfiber technology, chosen for Unity’s cleaning cloths and mop heads, is more effective with less detergent. This material, comprised of tiny fibers a tenth of the size of a human hair, can pick up 94 percent of present germs all by itself. Most of the time, the maintenance staff doesn’t even have to add any solution to clean the floors, said Giles.

As this technology is reducing the use of detergents, it is also reducing the use of paper towels used in cleaning. Each one of these microfiber towels has a long life — it can be washed up to 2,000 times without losing effectiveness. Giles estimates that each microfiber towel saves 19 cases of paper towels.

To further reduce extraneous use of cleaning solutions, Giles shifted the type of cleaning products used on campus, from the one certified green cleaning product and the handful of household standards, to 3 multi-purpose certified green cleaning products.

“In using these products, there is no over use, no over waste,” said Giles. Each one is mixed with water via a dilution system, ensuring the necessary minimum of cleaner is used. One jug, about 1.25 gallons, holds enough cleaner to do all the bathrooms on campus for a month, said Giles.

Aside from these more discreet changes to Unity’s cleaning system, Giles has implemented some changes that are more obvious — take the new automated paper towel dispensers installed in all campus bathrooms as an example. Battery-powered paper towel dispensers may seem like a contradiction to the environmental code that guides decision-making at Unity, but Giles assures us that they actually save paper, and lots of it.

For those unfamiliar with the old paper towels used by the college, Giles keeps a sample, for comparison, in his office: they are thick to the touch and bleach white, at least in contrast to the new towels, which are thinner, dirt brown, and about 2 inches shorter in length. The shift to these new towels, which are made of 100 percent recycled material, was made possible by the automated dispensers; due to their thickness (or, perhaps more appropriately, their thinness), the recycled towels would not have worked in the older manual dispensers. Even though the change required electricity, Giles feels he made the right decision.

“We use all rechargeable batteries,” said Giles, “and each one has 1,000 charges, and 11,000 waves before it needs to be charged.”

He also noted how much paper the college was saving as a result — roughly 10 cases of paper towels a month.

“Those trees aren’t coming down because of us,” said Giles.

Another thing the college is saving as a result of Giles’ cleaning transformations, to the surprise of the lead custodian, is money. “It is far more cost effective,” said Giles, offering the example of the floor mat system. Previously, the college rented finish mats — a type of floor mat designed for feet wiping, but not for absorbing dirt and water — from a company in Bangor. Giles investigated an alternative mat system — including scrapers and water hogs which would absorb the dirt and water — that would reduce the amount of dirt entering the buildings on campus, and therefore ultimately reducing the necessary cleaning. “For the same price of renting mats for the year, I can buy the whole system.” So, he did.

“It all goes together, it’s like a machine,” said Giles. He takes pride in the importance of janitorial systems, and is constantly thinking of different ways to improve the quality of cleaning at Unity, from backpack vacuums with hepafilters to zinc-free floor wax.

“We have an effect on every student, faculty, and staff on campus.”