Category: News

Matt’s passion about Maid Brigade’s calling to “Go Green” was so compelling that even I started to listen to what he was talking about!  But I still thought no way is this “Green Cleaning” thing going anywhere.  But it was kind of interesting!

So, since I was on Franchisee Advocate Council at the time, it was my responsibility to bring the topic up during  our meeting.  I briefly stated Matt’s case and told our V.P. of Operations, Howard Purdy, that he should talk to Matt about this new Green Cleaning thing. Howard (another one of those tree hugger guys, living in Colorado) was very interested in what Matt had to say. (Drats! – I liked and knew Howard, so why is he so interested??)  So Howard and Matt got together and started talking Green.

Howard was so impressed with Matt and Russ’s knowledge base about the subject that he began to investigate the possibilities.  Russ and Matt’s commercial business was already cleaning Green because of the governments push to incentivize businesses and construction companies to build and run efficient “Green” buildings for the health of the environment and the people working in these buildings.  (See www.usgbc.org/leed/  for more information about the LEED certification process and the Green Building Certification Institute.)

In the meantime, Randy Roth was calling Howard and telling him that Maid Brigade should really start to think about the benefits of Green Cleaning and what it could mean to the house cleaning industry.  Randy told Howard that he had started to experiment with some of the solutions and tools that Green Cleaning uses and said, “this stuff works great.” 

Well it didn’t take long for the Howard, Russ, Matt and Randy to get together and start imagining the possibilities that Green Cleaning and the benefits it could bring to Maid Brigade, its customers and the house cleaning industry.  Howard invited Russ and Matt to hold a informative workshop at Maid Brigade's 2006 National Convention.   And for the rest of the story...read more about our Green Cleaning history in Part III of Why Did Maid Brigade Go Green?

Go to www.620WTMJ.com/news/gogreen to hear my podcast about Maid Brigade and Green Cleaning!  

Maid Brigade’s Green Clean Certified® program means that each Maid Brigade office and Maid Brigade maid have been trained, tested and certified in cleaning homes thoroughly and with low health risks and a healthier planet.  Our Green Clean Certified system has been reviewed by an independent environmental laboratory in Denver Colorado and they have found that our green cleaning system, using products, solutions and cleaning procedures leave a home clean and healthy. They also compared us side by side with other maid services and found that the green products and tools we used did just as good of a job or better than those competitors using conventional, environmentally polluting products and tools. We can assure our Maid Brigade customers that we will provide them with a thorough house cleaning each and every time but with the added advantage that we are leaving their home healthy for them and their families.

To continue my series of simple ideas to “Green Up” your child’s environment, here are a few more suggestions:

3.  GO ORGANIC for your baby’s clothing, food, towels and bedding.  Choose organic cotton and/or products made from natural fibers.  If you don’t have the time to puree fruits and vegetables, there are several organic baby food brands available for mom’s on the go.

4.  Breastfeed your baby if possible. But if that is not your choice, at least choose BPA (Biphenyl-s) free bottles for feeding.  You can use glass and/or BPA free plastic bottles.  Most local baby stores carry them.

5.  I suggest using cloth diapers instead of disposable ones.  Cloth diapers do not contain the harmful chemicals that disposable diapers do and they don’t add to our landfills either.  I know disposables are convenient, but consider a diaper cleaning service for when you are at home.  I was lucky enough to have a diaper cleaning service for my kids and loved it!  I only used the disposables when taking the baby on an excursion.

6. Skin Products – Please be careful when choosing skin products for your newborn.  Choose natural products that do NOT contain phthalates, formaldehyde, mineral oil, parabens and sulfates.  If you love great fragrant products make sure you choose those with the least amount of chemicals and that use pure essential oils rather than artificial fragrance.  Fragrances not only have toxic chemicals in them, they also have suspension chemicals to keep the smell in the air longer.  Choose carefully. The same chemicals can also be found in house cleaning products with added fragrances, so avoid these as well.  Skin products and house cleaning products with these fragrances can cause neurological disorders such as headaches, behavioral problems, mood swings, even ADHD or worse.

7.  Last but not least, the indoor air quality of our homes is up to 7 times worse than outdoor air and house cleaning products are the major contributor to poor indoor air quality.  So reduce the toxic chemicals in the air by choosing Green Seal approved house cleaning solutions to clean your home.  Better yet, spend quality time with your new baby or grandchild and call your local Maid Brigade office for a free house cleaning estimate. When we clean your home it simplifies your life and gives you more time for your family.

Maid Brigade is the only Green Certified house cleaning service in the United States.  In addition to the specialized vacuums, we use Green Seal Certified solutions.  We only use Micro Fiber cleaning cloths that really grab and hold on to dirt and dust, leaving nothing behind and we train our staff to properly use all our green cleaning products and procedures, which ensures that every house cleaning adheres to Green Clean Certified Standards.

My children are grown, moved out and I no longer have to think about creating a safe environment for them, except for the fact a mother never stops worrying!  However, now that my life has changed and I am aware of the benefits of Green Cleaning, I often think about how hard it must be for new mothers to sift through all the media hype about what’s best for their children’s health.

I believe we are all more health conscious and want to make better choices when it comes to our diets, our skin and our lifestyles. But I know that even though I am more informed on the terrible side effects that chemicals have on all of us, I don’t always make the right choices.  So what are the basics a young mother should know when designing an environmentally safe haven for her newborn?  We all want the best for our children and I know that I used to resort to my mother’s advice, but today’s a different world and science has taught us some great lessons.  Over the next few days I will post a series of simple ideas to “Green Up” your child’s environment. Here are the first 2:

1. The first step is choosing the right color paint for the nursery.  Right?  Wrong!  The first step is choosing a paint that is VOC-free!  What are VOCs?  Volatile Organic Compounds that release toxic chemicals into the air.  Instead choose paints made from natural ingredients.  Your local paint store will be able to help you choose the right paint.  Low-VOC paint is much more available than it was years ago.

2.  To avoid the dust mite build up in the room and reduce your baby’s risk of developing allergies, I would suggest choosing hard surface flooring instead of carpet. 

Maid Brigade uses specialized vacuums that remove 99.9% of all dust mites and other respiratory irritants such as pollen, pet dander, hair, mold and dust than traditional vacuums.  And, we've tested our vacuums against our leading competitors' - they're proven to remove 3 times more air particulates than other maid services. Our vacuums are part of our green cleaning service, which protects your whole family, including baby, from the hidden health risks associated with traditional house cleaning services and products.

For baby's health, Maid Brigade's Green Clean Certified house cleaning service is a great choice.

Check back soon for the next installment in this series of green living tips.

Lately more and more marketers seem to be jumping on the green bandwagon - we see green claims everywhere.  Now that savvy consumers have decided that green living practices are better for the environment or for their health (or both), companies hope to attract these consumers by positioning their products in a green light. The only problem is, these claims may be false or exaggerated and it is often difficult for even savvy consumers to tell the difference. 

So the FTC is looking to put a red light on green claims.  The FTC hasn't reviewed its green marketing guidelines since 1998.  Over the last 10 years phrases like "environmentally friendly", "eco-friendly", "bio-degradable" and "non-toxic" have been abused, whether intentionally or unintentionally, on product labels.

House cleaning is no exception.  I ran across a house cleaning company in NYC (which I shall not name here) that marketed green house cleaning and when I called to ask what cleaning products were being used the sales person couldn't tell me.  Just that they were certified.  Certified by whom, I asked.  The sales person couldn't tell me that either.  On their web site they did note that they sprayed aromatherapy products at the end of the cleaning. (Even natural fragrances can trigger sthma and allergy attacks, however.)

Green is different things to different people.  Maid Brigade conducted consumer research before we converted to our exclusive Green Clean Certified(R) system and learned that people most often think of the environment (meaning our planet's) when they hear the word "green" but when asked about green behaviors, they said they were more likely to make choices to improve their immediate environment.

TRUE green cleaning improves boths environments.  We use cleaning solutions that are certified through Green Seal, the premier certifying body in the US today.  We can tell our customers what they are, we can even prodivde the MSDS sheets so that you can be sure we are not introducing harmful chemicals into your home.

Maid Brigade stands by our promise to leave your home as healthy as possible after we clean it, and we can prove it.  Ours are not irresponsible marketing claims - ours are a commitment to our customers and employees.

As a home cleaning specialist going “Green” and trying to educate the public (my maid service customers) was a challenge.

With so many products and information on the market about keeping your home bacteria free, many parents seek out common household cleaning products that contain “bacteria killing” chemicals.  Most of these products contain bleach and other toxic chemicals that are harmful to us all, and dangerous to their children.

So an effective educational piece that I use to make my customer’s “get it” about green cleaning is that little ones are still developing, and their organs are smaller than adults.  Yet they are exposed to the same amounts of residual house cleaning chemicals and VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds, which include an array of chemicals that pose a variety of human health hazards) in the home as adults are; in effect they are getting a larger dose.  Infants, toddlers and pets explore the world with their mouths and hands (or paws), so it’s possible for harmful cleaning ingredients to enter their little bodies on a frequent basis.

So think about Amanda, (your 1 year old daughter, or grandchild) sitting in the highchair, happily eating her afternoon snack with her little chubby fingers on the tray! (I can’t wait to be a Grandma!)

How do you want her highchair, your counters, your floors where she’s crawling to be cleaned?  With products that contain bleach, cleaned with cotton or paper towels that just spread the bacteria around and leave dirt, bleach or other toxic chemicals on the surface?  Or do you want to TRULY clean that surface with safe solutions and tools, like Micro Fiber, that leave nothing but a clean surface behind?  To me the choice is clear, GO GREEN, for the protection of your children, your family and the environment! 

Go to www.GreenCleanCertified.com for more information about cleaning Green.

That’s why Maid Brigade uses only green cleaning solutions certified by Green Seal to be effective, yet safe for you and your children. Maid Brigade green cleaning solutions contain no carcinogens, reproductive toxins, neurotoxins, endocrine disrupters or skin sensitizers.

But there’s more to making your children’s environment toxin free than using Green Clean Certified solutions.  Green Cleaning is a whole system of cleaning.  At Maid Brigade, we also use Micro Fiber cloths, which not only help to scrub, assist the solutions in killing bacteria, and absorb solutions, they also remove EVERYTHING from the surface they are cleaning.  That means the solutions too, leaving the surface truly free of dirt, bacteria and toxic chemicals!

Maid Brigade has received some terrific recognition from bloggers in the green lving space. Recently, I was interviewed at length by a freelance writer for an article for Inhabitat.com.  Inhabitat.com is a weblog devoted to the future of design - tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. The article explores Maid Brigade's Green Clean Certified® house cleaning system for its column "Is It Green?". The writer put me through a rigorous questioning, and in the end decided our green house cleaning service is indeed green.  Inhabitat has received some nice mentions from Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek and other publications. And the site receives 470,000 page views each month in the U.S. and more than 817,000 views globally.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/30/is-it-green-maid-brigade-green-cleaning/
 
The interview was also picked up by another blog:
 
http://earthwillremain.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/maid-brigade-green-cleaning-service

And this triggered yet another interview, by a writer for Working Mothers magazine, to explore Maid Brigade as a business opportunity as well as a solution for busy "mom-prenuers".

Great news! Green Seal has announced that it is working on a green standard for house cleaning services, to be titled GS-49.  Green Seal is a widely recognized independent organization which certifies various products to be safer for human health and the environment than traditional products used for the same purpose, yet equally effective.  Green Seal has established a standard for household cleaning products however as yet there is no standard for house cleaning services.

Maid Brigade established our Green Clean Certified(TM) standard in advance of a substantive third party standard such as the imminent GS-49.  When we converted our entire franchised system of house cleaning service providers to Green Clean Certified service, we patterned our standard as closely as possible to Green Seal's published standard for commercial cleaning companies.  Our standard includes using Green Seal certified house cleaning solutions, closed-canister multi-level filtration vacuums that meet the Carpet & Rug Institute's Green Label Program, and re-useable microfiber cloths which are color-coded to prevent cross-contamination from room to room.  Each Maid Brigade maid is certified according to our standard as soon as we hire them and each adheres to our green cleaning standards in every home they clean.

Green Seal's development of a formal standard for house cleaning services is great for the maid service industry.  We've noticed lately that more cleaning services say they clean green when in fact they have only changed the chemicals they use.  But cleaning chemicals may still be harmful to your health even if they are non-toxic.

Green Seal's standard for house cleaning companies will help to eliminate alot of confusion among consumers that are looking for a healthier way to have a clean home but don't have time to research what is truly green.  Green Seal's standard for house cleaning and maid services will help elevate green cleaning and separate those that are just capitalizing on the momentum for green living without making a commitment to TRULY clean green.

And speaking of making a commitment to TRUE green house cleaning, Maid Brigade is the only maid services company that has been approached by Green Seal to actually help them write their standard for house cleaning services. Maid Brigade senior leadership, myself include, has been a part of the process every step of the way, including multiple phone conferences, emails and comments posted in a private intranet site. It is a real accolade to be recognized by Green Seal for the thorough approach we've taken in terms of writing our own standard, certifying every maid in every Maid Brigade housecleaning office, and educating the public through www.greencleancertified.com and other consumer advocacy initiatives.

It is a real honor to be invited to participate in the development of this important standard.  Maid Brigade continues to demonstrate our market leadership when it comes to green cleaning because....it's about the customer. Every time.