Do them all today or take it step by step — whatever works to get you cleaning greener!

• Less is more: Dilute your cleaning supplies according to instructions and use only what’s needed to get the job done.
• Open the window: Clean with windows and doors open so you don’t trap air pollution inside your home.
• Use gloves and other precautions: Cleaning chemicals may harm or penetrate skin and eyes — check warning labels.
• Keep kids away: Children are more vulnerable to toxic chemicals. If they like to help, let them clean with soap and water, not toxic cleaners.
• Avoid “antibacterial”: If your family is generally healthy, there’s no need to use potentially toxic “antibacterial” products, according to the American Medical Association. Wash your hands with plain soap and water.
• Never mix bleach with ammonia, vinegar, or other acids: These combinations can produce deadly gases.
• Don’t be fooled by labels — buy certified green products: Label claims aren’t always true. Cleaning supplies certified by Green Seal or EcoLogo meet green standards.
• Try natural alternatives: Experiment with non-toxic options like vinegar (great for windows when diluted with a little water — wipe with old newspaper or rags) and baking soda (mix with water to form a paste for scrubbing). Of course mix with care; some ingredients are dangerous when combined.
• Take care with pine and citrus oil cleaners: Avoid using these cleaners especially on smoggy days, when the ingredients can react with ozone to produce cancer-causing formaldehyde.
• Skip the biggest hazards: Avoid air fresheners, use a baking soda and water paste to clean the oven and tackle toilet stains, and use a mechanical snake to unclog the drain.
• Dispose of your old toxics safely: If you choose to toss your old cleaners instead of using them up, drop them off at your local hazardous waste facility. Don’t pour cleaning supplies down the drain — some of the ingredients can harm wildlife as well as people.

In the Kitchen:

• Skip the biggest kitchen hazards, use safer alternatives: Replace oven cleaners with a baking soda and water paste and corrosive drain cleaners with baking soda and vinegar or a mechanical snake.
• Fight germs without nasty chemicals: Microwave your sponge — wet it and zap for two minutes to kill germs.
• More non-toxic ways to fight germs: Wash your hands often with regular soap and water — no need for “antibacterial” soap. Wash dishes and clean counters frequently so germs don’t collect and avoid “antibacterial” dish soap. Take out the garbage regularly to avoid germs, pests, and bad odors.

In the Bathroom:

• Skip the biggest bathroom hazards, use safer alternatives: Scrub toilets with baking soda and water instead of an acidic toilet-bowl cleaner. Use baking soda and vinegar or a mechanical snake instead of corrosive drain cleaners when you have a clogged drain (prevent clogs by using a drain cover).
• Fight germs without nasty chemicals: Focus on the toilet — keep germs isolated by tossing toilet cleaning rags into the wash right away and keeping the scrub brush in an out-of-the-way spot.
• More non-toxic ways to fight germs: Wash your hands often with regular soap and water — no need for “antibacterial” soap. Wipe down showers after each use to prevent mold and mildew.
• Forgo air fresheners: Air fresheners are unnecessary and potentially harmful. They only disguise odors, while pumping a bunch of potentially toxic chemicals into the air. Open a window, run a fan, and try to identify and clean up the real source of the smell. A box of baking soda is another safe way to eliminate odor.

Your Floors and Furniture:

• Sweep and vacuum frequently to remove dust, which often harbors household toxins.
• Mop with a dilute vinegar solution (e.g., ¼ cup vinegar in 1 quart of water).
• Try a microfiber mop to remove dust and dirt efficiently while using smaller amounts of both water and cleaning supplies.
• Dust with a soft or microfiber cloth and skip dusting sprays.
• Clean spills promptly so they are more easily removed with less toxic products.

A few weeks ago I stood in the cleaning aisle wondering what to get. Since I’m a die-hard label reader, I grabbed some containers and turned them around so I could assess the ingredients.

On one, there was no ingredient list – at all. On another, I could see what exactly 1.2% of the ingredients were. The other 98.8% were listed as “other ingredients.” So much for informing the consumer.

Why so incomplete? Because currently the government only requires manufacturers to list a very few ingredients on product labels – mainly pesticides – which is, of course, only part of the environmental health story when it comes to the chemicals in your cleaning products.

So what’s an eco-healthy shopper supposed to do when the label tells you so little? And no, “safe for your family and your pets when used as directed” doesn’t qualify as useful information.

Ingredients just got a little easier to find
Not surprisingly, manufacturers of cleaning supplies are increasingly aware of us label readers. And business being business, they don’t want to lose us – even if they have to show me a full ingredient list. Which is exactly what they plan to do – sorta.

Starting in January, 2010, industry groups began making more ingredient information available to consumers – but not in the aisle (where it counts). They’re calling it the Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative. It covers four product categories: air fresheners, automotive care, household cleaners, and floor polishes.

What it means to you
If you want a full ingredient list for a specific product, you can get it online or on the phone. An improvement to be sure. What you still can’t do is make an informed decision while shopping (unless you’ve got a smart phone and are prepared to spend some time hunting info down while shopping).

Once you know what’s inside, skip these 7 ingredients
While having an ingredient list somewhere is surely better than not having one at all, interpreting it is a different story. Which is why EWG Senior Scientist Rebecca Sutton put together this list of top ingredients of concern – so you can avoid them (good luck pronouncing them):

• 2-butoxyethanol (or ethylene glycol monobutyl ether) and other glycol ethers. 2-butoxyethanol is a widely-used cleaning solvent that: causes anemia by damaging red blood cells, creates air pollution that exceeds workplace limits, is linked to impaired fertility and reproductive and developmental toxicity, and (just to really make the case) EPA considers it a possible human carcinogen.
• Alkylphenol ethoxylates. These detergent-like chemicals break down into alkylphenols, potent hormone disruptors widely detected in people and the environment. The E.U. and Canada have banned them in cleaning supplies. The U.S. (surprise!) has not. Some common ones are: nonyl- and octylphenol ethoxylates, or non- and octoxynols.
• Dye. Companies often hide chemical information behind this word; when it’s this unknown, it’s safer to skip it altogether.
• Ethanolamines. These pH-stabilizers can cause otherwise healthy people to develop asthma. Some studies show that certain ethanolamines are carcinogenic or neurotoxic. Common ones to look out for are: mono-, di-, and tri-ethanolamine.
• Fragrance. These mystery mixtures can contain hundreds of untested chemicals, including toxic ingredients like phthalates and synthetic musks – both hormone disruptors. Fragrances are also among the top five allergens in the world.
• Pine or citrus oil. You may associate these smells with clean, but we recommend you don’t use cleaning supplies that contain them on smoggy or high ozone days, when compounds in the oils can react with ozone in the air to form carcinogenic formaldehyde.
• Quaternary ammonium compounds (aka “quats”). These common antibacterial cleaning ingredients can cause otherwise healthy people to develop asthma. Overuse of quats may lead to development of bacteria resistant to these and other germ-killing chemicals. Look out for these: alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (ADBAC), benzalkonium chloride, and didecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride.

Beware incomplete information
Vague terms like “preservative” or “surfactant” don’t really tell you what chemicals are in your cleaning supplies. This new “communication initiative” specifically allows fragrances, dyes, and preservatives to be identified by their functional names – in other words, the ingredient list will say just that: dyes, fragrances, and preservatives. Not thinking that qualifies as transparency – you?

What about the “greener” products, do they list ingredients?

We expect better labeling from safer products, and many deliver (and have for a while). A standout is Seventh Generation – they emphasize transparency and share full ingredient lists on their products (bless them) and their web site (complete with explanations for those of us who scratch their head when they see words like protease and oleic acid.

There oughta be a law…
US Representative Steve Israel (D-NY) and US Senator Al Franken (D-MN) are working on that. Last year they introduced bills in Congress – both called the Household Product Labeling Act - to require makers of household cleaners and other products to disclose their ingredients on the labels – a big step further than this voluntary industry campaign.

By Lisa Frack with EWG Senior Scientist Rebecca Sutton/enviroblog

If there is one place in your office that we would recommend you to start implementing your environmentally friendly workplace vision, that would be RESTROOMS. As an undisputable source of disease restrooms are also one of the main environmental hazards. Conventional cleaners use on average 4 different types of environmentally hazardous chemicals in the restrooms for which COGO Building Maintenance offers environmentally friendly substitutes:

• Hand soap
• Glass cleaner
• Neutral surface cleaner
• Neutral hard (floor) cleaner

Most commercial janitorial firms obtain their products from janitorial supply dealers and they are almost by default full of hazardous chemicals including bleach, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Propylene Glycol (Antifreeze), Dioxane, Dioxin and many more. Instead of doing the same, here at COGO Building Maintenance we offer, mild, biodegradable chemical formulas certified by Green Seal™, and EcoLogo™, that have met standards of environmentally friendly cleaning without sacrificing product performance.

At the same time restrooms greatly depend on paper products and one of the shocking facts that we had a chance to learn about through article in New York Times was that “In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100% recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales…” We at COGO Building Maintenance offer toilet paper and towels that are just as soft as conventional toilet paper and towels but at the same time 100% post-consumer, totally chlorine free and biodegradable. It really comes just to a choice that we have to make nothing more than that to protect our environment.

One more aspect of restroom cleaning is disposable trash and hygiene bags. Most commercial cleaners are still using plastic bags as a trash bags and hygiene bags in toilets and restrooms where they are needed. COGO Building Maintenance offers prime recycled paper bags that are completely biodegradable and environmentally friendly therefore reducing one more aspect that damages environment.

If you have any questions regarding our green cleaning programs or janitorial service overall please do not hesitate to give us a call at 314.359.1432 24/7.

GREEN! You read about it, you heard about it, yet you are not sure what are the direct benefits of it to you? You are not alone. Since green movement started number of people found themselves wondering, should they pay bit more for goods or services that are more environmentally friendly or not. In reality green products and services are better for you in more than one way; the most important one is coming through your janitorial service provider.

Apart from the actual various environmentally friendly advantages, such as reduction associated with carbon footprint, preservation connected with natural resources, environmentally green cleaning provided by COGO Building Maintenance can be a huge hit for your office, and spread awareness toward protection of our environment not only at your location, but rather in your employees’ everyday lives. Green cleaning directly improves health by making your spaces a lot more breathable, eliminating damaging chemical substances such as chlorine bleach, and phosphates found in everyday cleaning supplies. Such chemicals may increase symptoms of asthma as well as other allergy symptoms, which for result can trigger greater number of sick days by your employees. In our survey of locations that are serviced with our green cleaning program, office managers report drop in sick days for on average 4.7%, which represent impressing savings on your part.

In addition to mentioned above, one more important feature proved itself to be crucial for many building owners, schools, and office managers; dangers presented by environmentally friendly chemicals is by far lower than danger from conventional chemicals. Because eco-friendly cleansing solutions tend not to contain severe chemical compounds, leaks usually do not take the actual equivalent danger of other cleaning compounds which also can be associated with injuries. This converts right into a decrease in productiveness from your employees.

It is important to note that process of “greening” your business, building, school, home or office does not happen overnight. It is great misconception that placing 2 trash cans with signs that read “recyclable” automatically means that your place is green. Rather than that, you are taking one step toward better environment with your trash. What we recommend at COGO Building Maintenance is something we place in action with our clients who want to make that important step toward healthier workplace; STEP BY STEP PROCESS. We switch your not so eco friendly habits with ones that are very much eco friendly by giving you example one step at the time. Once we start taking care of your cleaning needs we start from the bottom up by “greening” your restrooms, lunch areas, offices, hallways and so on.

Only then can we expect healthier work environment that would increase productivity, healthcare costs, and overall cleanliness of your work place.

Frequent hand washing tops the list of official advice for preventing the spread of germs, flu, colds and viruses. Our hands come in constant contact with germs all day long. From money to doorknobs to friendly handshakes, our hands are a breeding ground for germs. Safe hands are clean hands.

History
1. The first advocate of hand washing was most likely Dr. Ignaz Simmeliveis of Vienna’s Lying-in Hospital. In the late 1800s, he mandated the frequent washing of hands with chlorine, and the mortality rate at his hospital dropped dramatically.

Children

2. Children in the United States typically suffer from 12 colds annually, compared with the two that adults get. Children are in close contact with other children, they pick up everything, they put things in their mouths and they easily transmit germs. Children must be reminded and instructed to wash their hands often.

Proper Hand Washing

3. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention have guidelines for the correct way to clean hands. Under warm running water, generously soap hands. Rub briskly and wash the entire hand. Rinse in tepid running water and dry with a paper towel. Use the paper towel to turn off the faucet.

When to Wash

4. It is always the right time to wash your hands, but especially before touching food; after using the toilet; after handling raw meat, poultry, eggs or fish; after taking out the trash; after a cough or a sneeze; after petting animals; and after using equipment.

Dangers of Not Washing Your Hands

5. Many infectious diseases are spread by hand-to-hand contact. Not only can you infect yourself, but you risk infecting others when you do not properly and frequently wash your hands.

Staying Healthy

6. The mere act of simply washing your hands is one of the best and most effective ways to stay healthy. This is one habit not to break.

   Source: How to dot com

   Here at COGO Building Maintenance clean hands are serious matter in every day office activity. With our janitorial programs and office cleaning we mastered restroom cleaning in such fashion that on average employees in the buildings that we clean utilize 1.3 days less of sick paid time off than employees in surrounding buildings. We use green seal certified products that are better for environment than traditional cleaning products increasing cleanliness of entire premises.

If you would like to find out more about cleaning options please do not hesitate to contact us at 314.359.1432

]]> http://cogobuilding.com/?feed=rss2&p=83 0 http://cogobuilding.com/?p=75 http://cogobuilding.com/?p=75#comments Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:52:43 +0000 admin http://cogobuilding.com/?p=75

The industry recommended time to have carpets cleaned is every 12-18 months, yet the average homeowner has her carpets cleaned every 7 years. “If it vacuums up, then it ain’t dirty,” as the old saying goes. The reason for the discrepancy between the time recommended and the span before they are actually cleaned results from the public not knowing how often this should be done, not to mention some misconception about costs. This article works towards solving these issues and a few others as well.

Average Carpet Cleaning Costs

The average home has about 1000 square feet (sq ft) of carpet. The national average for carpet cleaning costs on this size home is $.30/sq ft, which brings the actual carpet cleaning cost to $300. So the typical home spends around $43 a year for clean carpets, if the carpets in that home are being cleaned every 7 years.

If you happen to have more carpet than a typical home, you are likely to get a per sq ft discount, since your home is a bigger job. However, cleaning carpet costs will go up if you have less.

Our carpet cleaning cost averages to about $.22/sq ft, which is well bellow national average but yet you receive superb quality of cleaning with the latest equipment. Our average does depend on total workable sq ft of your home, that is of your total workable carpet area.

Less is More

In order for carpet cleaning companies to make a profit on homes with less than 1000 sq ft of carpet, they have to raise the price per sq ft. The company still has to drive out to your house, unroll all of their hoses, set up their equipment, do the work, and the break it all back down. This takes time. So don’t feel that you are being ripped off if your price per square foot is higher than your neighbors’. This is an industry standard.

Trick of the Trade

If carpet cleaning costs are more than you think they should be, here are a few ways that we can help you cut down on costs.

If you schedule a regular yearly cleaning with COGO Building Maintenance, you will be able to receive a lower price. With homeowners cleaning their carpets every 7 years, you will be way ahead of the curve and in the position to ask for a discounted price, since you are our regular customer.

Next, our company also does other cleanings, such as upholstery and ducts cleaning. If you bundle all of the chores together and have them performed by the COGO Building Maintenance on the same trip, even though the entire cleaning will cost more, you will be saving money on each individual process, since we are only making one trip.

The Final Word

The items and prices listed above are just averages that we have gathered from our competitors across the nation. Not every service will give you the same price or negotiate for the same kind of deals. However, if you think that the price you were quoted for your cleaning is too high or too low, be sure to get estimate from us,  so that you can see if you are victim of carpet cleaning  scam.

*Remember. Carpets last longer and look better with regular cleanings, plus carpet traps dust, dander, and allergens that can cause health issues. This is an inexpensive process that does wonders for your home and family.

Gather a few of the many bottles you probably have around your house: one for dishes, one for laundry, one for cleaning the bathroom, one for cleaning floors, one for windows. Look for the words CAUTION, WARNING or DANGER. These are signal words required by law for products containing harmful ingredients. Do you know what they mean?

Just think, if these amounts are fatal to a 180-pound man, what effect could it have on a child or a small woman?

Source: Healthy Cleaning

Look at the ingredients on your products. These ingredients have been deemed “generally safe” in small amounts by our government, that’s why they can be sold in your grocery store. But under your sink they are outgassing their containers and mixing together with each other in a chemical soup. Do you really think that toxic air stays inside your cupboard? How many hours of the day do you spend standing at that sink or nearby and inhaling those fumes? (Have you ever walked by a janitor’s closet? Ugh.)

Here are some common ingredients of commercial household products:

Source: Healthy Cleaning

NOTE: COGO Building Maintenance strictly follows  all of the OSHA safety standards. Safety is our priority when it comes to you and our employees. In past five years our firm did not have a single chemical related or any other work related accidents. We have zero damage and we intend to keep it that way.

To find out about our cleaning programs please call 314.359.1432

NOTE: COGO Building Maintenance is dedicated to our carpet cleaning policies. We price our service honestly and we do our job according to industry standards. Please note that carpet cleaning scammers are out there so please call certified specialist such ourselves for all of your carpet needs.

The Scam

The basic carpet cleaning scam is called a “Bait and Switch”. In this scam, the carpet cleaning company will try to get into your home with an incredibly low price. Usually they will charge only a few dollars per room. They have no intention on honoring this price however. Once they are in your home, they will raise the bill by charging you for extras. They will point at the dirty traffic areas and say that you need to have them preconditioned or they need to do a special dual process treatment on it.

If you have a pet, they will undoubtedly try to force a pet pretreatment on you even if you have no pet stains on your carpet. They may even say that you need to have protection applied or your carpet will be ruined. All of these charges can add hundreds of dollars to your carpet cleaning bill. Now, all carpet cleaners will probably try to sell you extras, that is their job. What separates them from the scammer is the way they sell. Bait and Switch carpet cleaners push often unnecessary products through fear and intimidation. They make you think your carpet will be ruined without the extras. They also can make it difficult to say no. Do not underestimate the intimidation factor of two 200 pound men in front of the average housewife.

Avoiding The Scam

It is not hard to avoid being a victim of “Bait and Switch” if you recognize the signs. If you get a coupon in the mail and the price is too good to be true, it probably is. A carpet cleaner cannot stay in business only charging $4.95 per room. Advertising costs, equipment costs, supplies, fuel, insurance, etc all add up. To stay in business a cleaner must make between $80 to $100 an hour. The average carpet cleaner cleans about 600 square feet an hour so the average home with 1200 square feet of carpet would have a carpet cleaning cost of $160 to $200. Prices may vary slightly depending on the level of service that the cleaner offers, but that is the average. You should also read the fine print on the advertisement or coupon you have received. Look to see if there are extra charges for preconditioning, etc. In addition, check to see if there are room size restrictions. Some companies will charge you extra for rooms over 100 square feet. The only room in your home under that square footage is probably your closet. Most legitimate cleaners will set the room size limit at somewhere between 200 to 300 square feet.

Bait and Switch carpet cleaners are a black eye on the carpet cleaning industry. Hopefully this article has given you the knowledge to avoid unscrupulous carpet cleaners so that your next carpet cleaning is a pleasant experience.

Source: James C – Carpet Cleaning

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