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Green and Clean Campaign

A Guide to Greening Your Home, School, Community & Workplace

What is Green Cleaning?
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  • Using the least toxic cleaning products in your home, school, and workplace, while also maintaining a healthy level of cleanliness and disinfection.
  • Moving away from petrochemicals (products derived from crude oil or a petroleum distillate) and moving towards bio-based (products derived from renewable sources such as the extracts or oils from fruits, vegetables, plant matter, seeds, or nuts).
The Harms of Using Common Household Products
  • Many common cleaning products may harm people, animals, and the environment, especially if used and exposed to every day and cause a wide range of skin, respiratory, immune, allergy, cancer, and reproductive harm.
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  • Of the 2,863 most commonly used chemicals only 7% have complete toxicity data and 43% have NO toxicity information available (Source: US Environmental Protection Agency).
  • 1 of every 3 cleaning chemicals used in schools can cause environmental or health problems such as asthma. (Source: Center for a New American Dream).
Green Cleaning Provides Safe, Cost-Effective Solutions
  • Many green cleaning products are competitively priced and they can also lower “soft” costs (i.e. dilution of products, using products that do “double duty”).
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  • 1 hospital saved $11,000 in one year on chrome cleaners since a “green cleaning” window cleaner also cleaned chrome.
  • Talk with current vendors about options within your current purchasing system, such as collaborative purchasing and competitive bidding.
Antibacterials Can Harm You and Your Family!
Antibacterials are found in wide variety of soaps, laundry detergents, shampoos, toothpastes, body washes, dish soaps, shaving cream and household cleaning products. According to Beyond Pesticides, they:
  • Encourage growth of super-resistant bacteria.
  • Wipe out “good” bacteria, vital for good health.
  • Children not exposed to “good” bacteria may be more prone to allergies and asthma.
  • Have no proven benefit over mild soap and water.
  • The American Medical Association says: “There is science to suggest that the use of some of these antimicrobials in consumer products can be linked to development of antibiotic resistance…We urge the FDA to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of antimicrobials in consumer products and strongly urge FDA regulation of them where resistance against antimicrobials has been demonstrated.”
Dangers of Triclosan
Triclosan is the most “Active Ingredient” in antibacterial Products including shaving cream & toothpaste. Possible health effects include:
  • allergies and asthma
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  • antibiotic resistance
  • weakening of the immune system
  • decreased fertility
  • altered sex hormones
  • birth defects
  • cancer
  • toxic to algae and aquatic ecosystems
Go Green and Clean Today!
Print out NJEF's Green and Clean Guide or follow the steps below to implement a "Green Cleaning" policy in your municipality, business, or school.
Steps to Passing a Green Cleaning Policy in Your Municipality
  1. Find allies and champions for "Green Cleaning". This could include friends, neighbors, concerned parents/groups, gardeners, neighborhood associations, environmental commissions, town managers, and parks department representatives.
  2. Gain support from elected officials, mayor, council and your environmental commission. Call them and/or attend one of the regular public meetings and give a five minute "pitch" during the "public comment" period (usually at the end of the meeting, but sometimes at the beginning). Suggest they support the concept of Green Cleaning. Bring a copy of the Green Cleaning Municipal Policy to the meeting.
  3. Schedule a vote on the Green Cleaning policy! Ask your town when the policy can be scheduled for a vote. Clarify what other steps need to be taken to get that to happen.
  4. Conduct a letter-writing campaign! Handwritten letters and/or emails to the mayor, council, and environmental commission or a phone call blitz can get things moving!
  5. Thank the town for passing the resolution and contact the media. Write a letter to the editor (LTE) of the local paper praising the town government for its forward action to protect the public from toxic cleaning products. To find your local paper, visit the NJ Press Association Website. It contains contact information for daily newspapers and weeklies. It's important to submit your LTE to a statewide paper, as well as your local newspaper (weekly).