UBC Facilities has a Green Cleaning Program that encompasses a number of comprehensive green cleaning/housekeeping initiatives that all of our staff are trained in. These initiatives are being implemented within the University of British Columbia and incorporated into the everyday operations of custodial services to reduce the environmental impact of cleaning products.
These initiatives include switching to:
- Chemicals and cleaning products
- Non-toxic Eco Logo certified cleaning products (or approved alternates) to ensure a healthy indoor environment
- Portion controlled green seal certified chemical dispensing units to reduce the amount of chemicals used by ensuring proper dilution. Stocked items in buildings
- Biodegradable garbage bags
- 100% recycled paper products in efficient jumbo size rolls, which reduces the time taken to replenish the paper dispensing units
- Cleaning systems
- Ergonomically designed equipment and tools that are lighter and easier to use, and also reduce the amount of stretching, bending and lifting required of staff
- Micro fibre cleaning cloths that are colour coded to eliminate cross contamination issues. These cloths have been proven to pick up twice the bacteria and dirt as common hand wipes. Cloths used in washrooms are never used in any other areas of the facility.
- A wet mopping system that also uses the colour coded system.
- A dry mopping system that uses an electrostatic charge to magnetically attract dust and dirt. As these mops actually attract dust, it allows us to clean more surface area than any other disposal, dry dusting system
- A wax applicator system that has reduced the amount of floor finish usage around campus
- Autoscrubbers that are designed to reduce detergent and water waste and the possibility of slip and fall accidents
Upcoming targets
Many green cleaning products and machines have been trialed as we continue to search for green alternatives. In order to provide the highest quality of service, whilst reducing our environmental impact we are currently trialing:
- Carpet cleaning/extractor machines, lighter weight burnishers and floor machines
- Green eco logo foam soap versus current colour/scented gel hand soap. This soap can deliver up to 2500 hand washes, reducing the amount of soap used, as well as the number of times the dispensers need to be refilled. In addition, the new foam soap system uses a box-less refill pouch to reduce packaging waste by up to 80% over standard bag-in-box systems
- Autoscrubbers that use ec-H20 electrically converted water technology. These machines will potentially increase productivity whilst using 70% less water and 90% less detergent than conventional scrubbing
- An air hand dryer in one of our buildings to assess the environmental, social and economic impacts of these machines as an alternative to recycled paper towel. These units will be assessed on user acceptability, power consumption and delivery on performance claims