EnvironMentor Program
Environmental protection is a priority for the continued health of people and our planet. ManageMen recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually striving to reduce the environmental impact of the work cleaners do and the services we provide.
ManageMen and the Global Environment
ManageMen takes pride in its history of innovation and thoughtful cleaning programs. How we impact the environment is very important to us. Environmental considerations are an integral part of ManageMen’s business practices. From the earliest stages of cleaning system design through training, implementation, and recycling, we take care to keep the activities of (OS1) users and our information products environmentally sound.
Environmental considerations are an integral part of ManageMen’s business practices
Five areas of particular attention are cleaning for health, protecting the built environment, safe cleaning practices, environmentally responsible chemicals, indoor air quality improvement, and recycling. Each aspect of the design cycle provides significant challenges, yet our efforts in these areas have resulted in some impressive results.
Cleaning for Health
It all begins here. Cleaning is all about removing unwanted matter and putting it in its proper place. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity. Cleaning an environment creates a sense of well being for those in the environment. ManageMen (OS1) recognizes that there are tremendous benefits from cleaning for people who spend more than 90% of their life in built environments.
Protecting the Built Environment
When the State of Washington wanted to clean up the environment for their own environmental scientists (all 1,100 of them) they chose ManageMen to develop their program for cleaning. (OS1) was used as the Deep Cleaning Protocol in the Washington State Ecology building recommissioning project. This project is cited by the U.S. Green Building Council as a model program for LEED EB. Of all the components that were part of this pioneering environmental project the (OS1) Deep Clean was recognized as the most noticeable improvement and the one most favorably regarded, even by the harshest critics of the project.
Safe Cleaning Practices
Reducing the environmental impact of our cleaning starts with the process engineering. Process design dictates the quantity and packaging of chemicals, ergonomic aspects of tools, impact of materials and procedures, energy consumption and the ease of recycling. For example, our decision to eliminate the use of upright vacuums makes our cleaning process much more environmentally friendly. Our training programs emphasize training all workers in the cleaning language of “(OS1)ian” to eliminate confusion and a lack of communication among cleaning workers.
(OS1) continually improves by benchmarking best practices among the cleaning industry’s best cleaning programs. (OS1) users work to maximize efficiency while minimizing waste. They utilize the benefits of programs such as the (OS1) Audit Program and the (OS1) Users Symposium to practice continuous quality improvement.
Olympic Winner
The Salt Lake City Winter Games were recognized as the cleanest and the most environmentally friendly Olympics, ever.
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City had to utilize world class cleaning. The goal was zero impact on the environment, before, during and after the games. ManageMen was selected to provide a gold medal program over all other proposals worldwide. We developed the cleaning process, wrote the cleaning specifications and scheduling, recruited project management, evaluated the bidders, produced all training materials including an Olympics venue cleaning video and written materials and conducted the training. When it was all over, the Salt Lake City Winter Games were recognized as the cleanest and the most environmentally friendly Olympics, ever.
Energy Efficiency
A cleaning program’s greatest environmental impact is often its energy consumption over time. ManageMen has made great strides in recent years to optimize energy efficiency of our tools, and workloading. Since 1993, all ManageMen projects have utilized the team cleaning approach to reduce energy consumption over area or zone cleaning programs.
Incineration
While incineration does not completely eliminate solid waste, it drastically reduces the mass of waste being sent to landfills. Because most incineration produces steam for heat and electricity, this method is often called waste-to-energy conversion. Yet, incineration still is under close scrutiny by environmental groups throughout the United States for contributing to air pollution.
Also, incineration burns off the non-toxic material of waste, leaving a high concentration of the toxic material. Unrecoverable waste—waste that hasn’t been source separated for recycling—is the most likely to be incinerated. There are also some materials, such as glass and metal, which are not normally incinerated. Products which can be neither recycled nor incinerated are destined for landfills. The plastic PortionPac chemical pack is one of the rare containers that adds to the fuel in an incinerator.
Environmentally Responsible Chemicals
In (OS1) we use chemical concentrates, source them without excess packaging, dispose of hazardous waste intelligently, and train workers to be responsible. (OS1) has completely eliminated the use of dangerous cleaning chemicals from all daily cleaning functions. 100% of the daily use cleaning chemicals are Green Seal Certified. The single daily germicide used to reduce pathogenic microorganisms is a neutral pH detergent that is U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved.
Additionally, each of the three daily use chemicals are issued in pre-measured packages Each is inventoried at the beginning and end of each shift. The three chemicals are color-coded to the package label, MSDS, (OS1) training materials, Job Cards and Scouting Reports. No individual (OS1) cleaning team specialist uses more than one chemical to perform their daily cleaning tasks.
(OS1) has removed the use of dangerous, high pH cleaning chemicals for the carpet cleaning process. All of the required carpet cleaning chemicals are neutral pH @ +-7. On the OSHA hazard placarding chart the hazard is listed as Toxic Hazard 0, Flammable Hazard 0, Reactive Hazard 0 and Corrosive Hazard 0.
ManageMen helps to safeguard the environment — as well as users’ safety — by restricting the use of environmentally harmful compounds in our cleaning processes. For example, our (OS1) Restricted Materials policy limits the use of abrasives, ammonia, bleach, peroxide (halogens), straight hydrochloric acid bowl cleaner, lye drain opener and abrasive powders in our processes and programs.
Source Reduction
(OS1) recognizes that the key to source reduction is to use less and reuse more. Source reduction means lessening the amount of waste produced. This includes avoiding products that have excess packaging, and buying concentrates whenever possible. It also involves reducing the toxicity of waste and cutting down on the use of hazardous chemicals.
In (OS1) we insist on responsible packaging and fewer hazardous products. (OS1) users work to purchase from distributors that carry products that reflect environmental concerns, and who will assist in getting the waste management message out to their personnel. In an (OS1) study conducted at Qualcomm the (OS1) chemical inventory, packaging reduction program reduces chemical packaging to the landfill by more than 97%.
The (OS1) Just-in-Time inventory system based on Lean manufacturing processes further reduces the amount of items that are disposed of due to the cleaning function. These are just a few ways to get waste management under control.
IAQ & IEQ
From the inception of the (OS1) concept Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) have been fundamentals of the process. Most vacuum cleaners throw dust particles emissions throughout buildings. Not in the (OS1) process. Michael A. Berry, PhD, documented, in a landmark cleaning study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, that cleaning programs at an 80% (OS1) Audit reduce indoor air particles to a safe level. Traditional housekeeping in the same study was documented as producing twenty times more particle emission than is allowed by EPA’s National Ambient Air Standards-OUTSIDE.
The significant reduction of indoor dust was attributed to (OS1) training, tracking, equipment usage and the use of a CRI Green Label certified vacuum, the ProTeam Super CoachVac. (OS1) users pioneered daily filter cleaning and logging frequent and regular filter exchanges which facilitate the outstanding results noted in the UNC study by Dr. Berry.
The ProTeam Super Coach provides four-level filtration which starts with a special micro-filter at the first level. Micro filters greatly increase vacuum efficiency. One study showed that a standard paper filter bag removed only 39.9 percent of debris 10 microns in size, while a micro filter bag removed over 99% percent of these particles. Likewise, a standard paper filter bag removed only 16.3% of one micron particles, whereas micro filters removed 95% of one micron debris.
The 3 R’s - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
(OS1) has a holistic approach to recycling — encompassing a cleaning product’s entire life cycle — includes extensive take-back programs that enable janitors and businesses to dispose of used cleaning equipment in an environmentally sound manner. Our (OS1) cleaners use chemicals that are packaged in special pre-measured packs.
No attempt at waste management is complete without a recycling program. Recycling provides raw materials for manufacturing, and it keeps a large amount of the solid waste stream from being sent to already overburdened landfills.
Secondary use bottles come with screened bottles made from recycled milk bottles. The (OS1) team approach supports customers who want to separate recyclable waste in their landfills.
Reduced water use is fundamental to (OS1). We have eliminated traditional mopping with ”string” mops and large quantities of dirty mop solution and replaced it with flat micro-fiber mops and two-sided buckets. This has reduced the amount of water usage for restroom cleaning functions by 75% and the amount of polluted solution mopping by nearly 100%.
We pioneered eliminating cleaning cloths made from trees by the introduction of the concept of the (OS1) Laundry. High efficiency, Energy Star laundry programs recycle cleaning cloths for hundreds of uses before sending them to a landfill.
The (OS1) Floor care carpet care programs extend the life cycle of building surfaces and finishes of hard floors, carpet, fixtures and furniture. The opportunities of cleaning organizations contributing to a solution for the solid waste problem are virtually endless. Once the idea is planted, “green” programs begin to sprout. But, first, someone needs to sow the field.
ManageMen recognizes the need to provide a safe environment for our children and grandchildren. We’ll all breathe easier as a result.