Green Clean Your Environment
Interested in using green cleaners in your home or office? It's very easy and there are many options.
Green Cleaning Chemicals
In addition to the Green Seal certified institutional cleaners that FMO uses, there are many household green cleaners available. Be careful of greenwashing- environmental claims on products, such as "all natural" that are not regulated and are not backed up by science or regulated standards.
What to look for:
- Concentrated products
- Minimal, recycled, and/or recyclable packaging
- No phosphates (or a maximum of less than 0.5% by weight)
- No disposable wiping materials
- Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) should not exceed 10% of weight
- Biodegradable products
- Non-toxic products
- No EDTA, NTA, chlorine bleach, hypochlorite, or nonylphenol ethoxylate
- Neutral pH
- No petroleum or petroleum based products such as glycol ether, isopropyl alcohol, or phenolic compounds.
Instead of purchasing green cleaning chemicals, you can produce your own out of basic ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, and lemon juice. Many books and websites exist on the subject, and you can test recipes until you find ones that suit your needs.
Green Restroom and Kitchen Products 
When choosing toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues, consider buying recycled content and non-chlorine bleached paper products. Paper towels and bathroom tissue are one use products that cannot be recycled and immediately end up in the landfill or waste treatment plant. In addition, their manufacturing method is usually environmentally harmful. White paper products are often bleached with toxic chemicals that hurt the environment and human health and use excessive amounts of water. Bleaching is a purely aesthetic process and is completely unnecessary for performance. In addition, many trees are cut down to create the products and the packaging. By switching to unbleached or non-chlorine bleached, recycled content products that have minimal packaging, the harm to the environment can be minimized. In addition consider purchasing recycled content garbage bags for your household or business, which helps to close the loop in plastic recycling.
Green Cleaning Methods
Green cleaning is not just about products, it is also about using sustainable cleaning methods. Some of the methods that FMO has been most successful with include microfiber cloths, mops, entrance matting, and high filtration (HEPA) vacuums. Microfiber cloths and mops are made out of a special material that does not need to chemicals to clean and can be washed and reused many times. A life cycle analysis of microfiber cloths found that they are an excellent alternative to paper towels that are only used once. Entrance matting is used to keep dirt from entering a building, reducing the need for cleaning products. High filtration vacuums can be used to clean carpets and keep indoor air quality at an optimal level.