Waste Prevention Information Exchange

Cleaning and Custodial Supplies

Also see Environmentally Preferable Purchasing, Hazardous Substances, and Environmentally Preferable Purchasing in Health Care.

Resources

Documents

• Best Practices Manual—This guide will help you select products that offer best value, not only in terms of cost and performance, but for the health of fellow employees and our environment ... and our families. Everyone makes a difference.
  • Building Maintenance - Cleaning Products
• Cleaning for Health: Products and Practices for a Safer Indoor Environment—A one-stop guide to environmentally preferable cleaning products and methods that have been effectively used in office buildings, schools, hospitals and other facilities in the United States and Canada.

Websites

• Buy Environmentally-Preferable Cleaning Products Now—A page from New American Dream, which contains a list of companies that manufacture cleaning products and emphasize non-toxic ingredients and full disclosure.
• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing—From U.S. EPA.
• EnviroSystems—Provides disinfectants, sterilants, and other disease-reducing products safe for use around humans and animals.
• Organized Home—This website is edited by Cynthia Townley Ewer, a resident of eastern Washington state, and a nationally recognized expert on organizing, managing, and cleaning the home.
  • Homemade cleaning recipes— "Simple recipes using products from your pantry make effective household cleaning solutions that are inexpensive and easy to make. An added plus: These natural products are more environmentally friendly than detergent- and fragrance-laden commercial alternatives."
  • Make your own cleaning wipes—Commercial cleaning wipes are "wickedly convenient--but also wickedly expensive and often contain harsh chemicals. The alternative: Make your own. Homemade cleaning wipes are easy to make, economical, and contain only those cleaning agents you select."
• Safe & Effective Use of Floor Finish Strippers—Addresses different types of floor finish strippers, and the risks to the user, to building occupants, and to the environment. From the Janitorial Products Pollution Prevention Project.