On how to find green cleaning, not green washing

The Greenwash Brigade

I came across this 6-minute video on how to identify and avoid greenwashing when buying cleaning products or hiring someone to clean your home. The carpet cleaning blog where I found it seems, uh, rather informally managed, but the info appears generally reliable.

It’s really a Maid Brigade commercial embedded in the video, but the advice is sound, and if you skip the last 45 seconds, you miss most of the commercial. I like the five questions (opens PDF) to ask when hiring a cleaning services - although #5 is for those seeking perfection.

Personally, I prefer to hire locally, to keep the money in my local economy, to ensure whoever cleans my home has reasonable control over his/her hours and working conditions. Plus, I’m happy to help share green cleaning along the way - expanding the number of green cleaning services available in my community.

January 6, 2009 by Janne K. Flisrand
2 comments

tags: cleaning products services

Comments (2)

Val | Respond
January 7, 2009 7:43 AM PT

Just for additional information every Maid Brigade office is privately and locally owned and operated. They have all just agreed to operate as "Green" as possible in order to be Green Clean Certified.

laura | Respond
April 21, 2009 6:05 PM PT

I just had a cleaning company in my local town (charleston, sc) come out and clean my home. They (Castle Keepers)were really good and used green cleaning practices. I am so glad for your blog post, b/c I think it’s such an easy thing to switch to and makes a huge difference, especially when children are in the home.

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Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

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