Cleaning Is Your Responsibility

SBDCNET reported in a statement that “the US janitorial services and carpet cleaning industry consists of about 50,000 janitorial companies and about 9,000 carpet and upholstery cleaning companies with combined annual revenue of about $ 35 billion. Major companies include divisions of companies such as ServiceMaster and ABM Industries, private companies such as UGL Unicco and Stanley Steemer, and franchisers such as Coverall Health-Based Cleaning System and Jani-King. The industry is fragmented: the 50 largest companies generate about 30 percent of revenue. Janitorial services generate most of the revenue for the industry.” This was an excerpt from a 2012 article and still holds true in 2017. So, because of this accountability you now possess wouldn’t it be better to hire a professional?

Many carpet cleaning companies offer tons of carpet and cleaning services and information that can assist you. Most consumers try their best to save money in trying to professionally clean their homes, or commercial spaces by doing the work themselves. Sometimes taking matters into your own hand have been proven not to be the best solution. When it comes to cleaning, you definitely want to be properly educated. Many people believe that if they purchase cleaning products and follow proper instructions, then the results will be fine. Frankly, that’s not always the case.

In a case study Bright & Clear Inc.,  states that “janitorial services involve more than a mop, broom or duster. Environmental and health concerns with the latest technologies have taken commercial cleaning to new levels.” So, are commercial chemicals any better than all natural solutions. Many people would argue it simply doesn’t matter. While in my professional opinion I say it does matter. Natural is always the best way to go. When you are dealing with modifies solutions you are more prone to: sickness and adverse cleaning effects that could cause a lot of property damage to what you may be cleaning. With natural solutions most times you have less to worry about in the long run.

Is there a final solution to this debate? Well, that depends where you fall on the spectrum of this topic, but one thing, I believe we can all agree on is cleaning is your responsibility.

Cleaning Is Your Responsibility

Can dry cleaning give you cancer? The hidden hazards of delicates

With the results of the most recent presidential election, Americans are faced with all sorts of uncertainty in regards to their health. But there are some consumer choices that individuals can make to protect against future illness: cutting down on sugar, for example; exercising daily; and, surprisingly, being careful about how you clean your delicates.

You may not know it, but most dry cleaning isn’t dry at all – and it isn’t clean. Instead of water, professional cleaning processes use a liquid solvent to dissolve stains on garments. This typically involves a chemical known as perc that, while highly effective at getting scuff marks out of clothing, is also a known health and environmental hazard.

Health organizations, including the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), have classified perc as a toxin, but it’s still widely used across the industry. In 2012, the EPA classified perc as a “likely human carcinogen”, meaning that prolonged exposure to the chemical has been linked to an increased risk of cancer.

Perchloroethylene, also known as tetrachloroethylene, PCE or perc for short, is a chlorinated hydrocarbon used primarily by the dry cleaning industry, but it’s also used as a metal degreaser in industrial cleaning.

In the EPA’s 2012 press release on the subject, the agency warned: “Studies of dry cleaning workers exposed to tetrachloroethylene have shown associations between exposure and several types of cancer, specifically bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma.”

In the same year the IARC, found perc to be “probably carcinogenic to humans” based on evidence from epidemiological data and animal studies.

According to the most recent data, the EPA estimates that 28,000 dry cleaners in the US use perc. In 2006, the agency significantly tightened its requirements for the use of air toxins in dry cleaning. A spokesperson for the agency said: “The rule includes a phase-out of perc use at dry cleaners located in residential buildings, along with requirements that will reduce perc emissions at other dry cleaners.”

The requirement includes the complete phase-out of perc machines in dry cleaners located in residential buildings by 2020. New York, Illinois and New Jersey are among some of the states to have passed recent legislation clamping down on the use of perc. But a decade after the EPA ruling, the only state to pass legislation outright banning perc has been California.

The main health risk with perc is not through wearing clothes that have been cleaned with it, but rather, exposure through air or soil. The effects of short term exposure (breathing in high amounts over a short span of time) include dizziness, headaches and loss of consciousness, according to the EPA.

It is long term exposure that can increase the risk of cancer, putting dry cleaning workers and people who live in close proximity to shops at the highest risk.

A 2009 study in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health found that living near a dry cleaner that uses perc increases the risk of developing kidney cancer.
Proximity to a dry cleaner does not mean that exposure to perc is a given. Not all dry cleaners use perc, and many that do send the clothing off-site to an industrial complex away from residential buildings.

Additionally, with correct ventilation and maintenance, the amount that leaks into the air can be minimized.

The National Association for Cleaners (NCA), a trade group that looks after the business interests of dry cleaners, does not view perc as dangerous. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, director of technical services Alan Spielvogel said the latest perc machines are much safer, and that alternatives to perc don’t clean as well. The NCA did not return the Guardian’s request for comment.

As a chlorinated hydrocarbon, perc breaks down very slowly in the air so it can travel long distances, meaning that in urban areas there are trace amounts of it in the air even if there is no dry cleaner nearby. According to air samples of urban areas in different parts of the US, the typical background level of perc is roughly a couple of micrograms per cubic meter.

The New York Health Department recommendations for a safe level of perc in the air is no more than 30 micrograms per cubic meter. The guidelines, however, state that “reasonable and practical actions should be taken to reduce perc exposure whenever air levels are above background”.

The agency has a particular concern that indoor levels of perc in the air are kept as close to background levels as possible.

Measuring the levels of perc in the air, however, isn’t all that straightforward. In New York, the authorities do not regularly monitor dry cleaning emissions and generally, environmental agencies in other parts of the country only do so when there has been a complaint or reason to suspect a contamination.

Earlier this year, a Crains investigation into the use of perc in the city found that since 2011 the health department received 250 complaints from dry cleaners and residential laundry rooms about their emissions.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the health hazards of perc, as well as its environment impact, and are questioning why it’s taking so long for the chemical to be phased.

Dr Ivan Rusyn, a committee member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, who reviewed the EPA’s risk assessment of perc, said that in the grand scheme of how federal agencies work, it’s not been that bad. “It’s a very long process to create these human health assessments,” Rusyn said.

The California air board spokesperson said the biggest challenge in phasing out perc has been a resistance on the part of dry cleaners who think it’s the most effective way to clean clothes.

Tim Maxwell, the president of GreenEarth, a widely used silicone-based alternative to perc, echoed that challenge. He also said that the unstructured nature of the dry cleaning business, which has been in decline for the last ten years, makes implementing drastic changes difficult.

“Most dry cleaners are mainly small mom-and-pop businesses,” he said. “The hardship of replacing that perc machine is anywhere from $ 40,000 to $ 100,000 and that’s very economically challenging.”

GreenEarth is among many of the alternatives to perc, which also include water-based cleaning technologies known as wet cleaning, carbon dioxide technology and a host of other chemical cleaning systems. While the alternatives are thought to be preferable both from a health and environmental standpoint, research into these other systems is still in its nascent stages.

Other options for consumers looking to avoid the potential risks associated with dry cleaning is to launder clothes at home or in a regular laundromat. Despite clothing labels saying otherwise, consumers often find that clothes marked as “dry-clean-only” will come out of a regular wash unscathed (for the most part).

Can dry cleaning give you cancer? The hidden hazards of delicates

You Should Never Mix These Common Cleaning Products

Many common cleaning products are helpful to have around your home or office.  But mixing some of these products can cause toxic fumes, irritating acids, and gases that may be very harmful to your health.

At times, many of us face tough cleaning projects at home or at work.  And sometimes a cleaning product frustrates us because it isn’t working according to our plan.  Faced with our frustration, we might become motivated to be creative by grabbing other cleaning products, and combine them to try to get the job done.

Experts offer us a warning that combining certain common cleaning products is not a good idea.

Combining Cleaning Products

Before you consider mixing one cleaning product with another, consider what Nancy Bock, Senior VP of Education at the American Cleaning Institute, has to say concerning the scary truth about combining cleaning products.

“Certain products, which are safe when used alone, can sometimes cause unsafe fumes or other chemical reactions when mixed with other products.”

Additionally, Carolyn Forte, director of the Cleaning Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute, has this to say about mixing cleaning products.

“People often think that if one product works, mixing it with another one will make it even better.”

Even if you combine cleaning products that aren’t necessarily dangerous, in most cases it’s hard to know what effect the two products will have on a fabric or surface.

Health and Safety Recommendations

For your health and safety, never mix the following cleaning products:

• Vinegar + Baking Soda:  Individually, vinegar and baking soda help clean all over the home or office.  However, these handy cleaning products should not be combined. Nancy Bock says, “Baking soda is basic and vinegar is acidic.  When you put them together you get mostly water and sodium acetate.  But really, just mostly water.  Plus, vinegar causes baking soda to foam up — if stored in a closed container, the mixture can explode.”

• Rubbing alcohol + Bleach:  Although this combination might not make you pass out, this mixture can be irritating and toxic.  Always keep in mind — never mix bleach with anything but plain water.  Carolyn Forte adds, “Even other products like window and toilet bowl cleaners can have ingredients, like acids or ammonia, that shouldn’t be mixed with bleach.”

• Vinegar + Hydrogen peroxide:  Some say you should spray counter tops and fruit with alternating mists of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide — then wipe down the surface between sprays.  Experts say this method is quite safe.  But don’t mix the two products in the same container.  Combining these two cleaning products creates peracetic acid, which is potentially toxic.  Peracetic acid can irritate the eyes, skin, and respiratory system.

• Vinegar + Bleach:  The combination of these two cleaning products may sound like it would be a powerful disinfectant.  But these two ingredients should never be mixed.  Forte warns, “Together, they produce chlorine gas, which even at low levels can cause coughing, breathing problems, and burning, watery eyes.”

• Drain cleaner + Drain cleaner:  Use only one product according to package directions.  Treatment usually requires only half a bottle.  Forte says, “I would never recommend mixing two different drain cleaners or even using one right after the other.  These are powerful formulas, and could even explode if combined.”  And if your chosen drain cleaner doesn’t work, Forte recommends that you don’t try another product.  Instead, you should probably call a plumber.

• Ammonia + Bleach:  Ammonia and bleach produces a toxic gas called chloramine.  According to Forte, “It causes the same symptoms as bleach and vinegar — along with shortness of breath and chest pain.”  Many window and glass cleaners contain ammonia — so never mix those with bleach.

Solutions — What to Look For

A few safe, simple ingredients like water, soap, vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda, and borax can help take care of most of your cleaning needs.  You might have to use a coarse scrubbing sponge and a little elbow grease.  But in the end, using these safe and inexpensive cleaning products will be gentler on your health — as well as the environment.

You Should Never Mix These Common Cleaning Products

Cleaning Touchscreen Products: Disgusting Germ Gathering Magnets

Cleansing Touchscreen Gadgets

If you knew what was lurking on your cellphone screen proper now, you would not want to choose it up sporting gloves let alone hold it towards your encounter or touch the screen!  Believe of how typically we share images with friends and they touch your display, you get it to the fitness center, set it down in locations germs are lurking and by no means feel twice about it.  The bacteria living on your screen appropriate now can trigger flu, colds, pinkeye, indigestion and significantly worse in accordance to physicians interviewed lately by the Wall Street Journal. 

A lab tested eight randomly selected phones from a Chicago workplace and all phones showed abnormally high numbers of coliforms, a bacteria that signifies fecal contamination. Of the eight phones examined, there had been amongst about 2,700 and 4,200 units of coliform bacteria. In consuming water, the restrict is significantly less than one unit per 100 ml of water.

So we just need to have to clean our phones every day, correct.  Effectively that is the place the cleaning touchscreen units challenge begins.  You cannot just throw it in the dishwasher or pour a bottle of Clorox over it since most cleaners and disinfectants can harm your phone’s screen or situation.

Methods to Cleansing Touchscreen Devices:

one. Wash your hands typically or use a hand sanitizer before touching your display. I love YL Thieves all normal spray/sanitizer simply because it kills almost everything and smells fantastic.

two. Really do not hand your telephone to your runny nosed youngster to occupy them except if they have washed their hands or used sanitizer.

three. Do not share your mobile phone with close friends and co-employees to “collect their germs” on your gadget unless, you guessed it, they use hand sanitizer.

four. By no means apply water or cleaner directly to the phone. Use a dampened soft cloth (microfiber operates best). Do not soak the cloth so that it is dripping or simply wring it out to remove excess moisture ahead of employing circular, gentle motions to clean.  Do not use something abrasive or use excessive force.

five. Use an accepted cleansing substance on your mobile phone to clean it. Keep in mind iPhone and iPod Touch screens are manufactured with an oleophobic coating that repels oil. These screens should be handled with care to maintain them working effectively and to steer clear of damaging your display.  Never use anything containing alcohol or other chemical compounds on your touchscreen.

I located this handy kit on Amazon and keep it in my purse.  Screen Cleaner 2goTM Organic Digital Cleansing Kit Excellent for Iphone, Droid, Ipad, and Other Products

Healthy Blessings,

Sandy

My Weblog: Normal Treatments for Each day

If you were totally disgusted by Cleansing Touchscreen Products and would like to share it with your friends, please do so.  But not on YOUR cellphone!

Cleaning Touchscreen Products: Disgusting Germ Gathering Magnets