When the public thinks of a Green business, the implied message is that the company is probably a very happy and healthy place to work. The workplace should not be a scary place where some discoveries would send chills down the spine and a shock to our senses. Yet, the truth is that many Green businesses are a threat to the workers who spend a good part of their life in less-than-safe environments.The most stunning Green business nightmare is an accidental visit to the janitor's closet. Although the operation is a relatively clean building with a nightly crew of seldom seen people who quietly clean every room of your facility, things may not be what you think. Far more sinister discoveries lurk behind the doors that will tell us more than most of us really want to know. But, there is that curiosity that drives the suspicious few to find out what really lies beyond the obvious. We would all assume that the place that holds all the cleaning products must be the safest place of all, right?Opening the door to this rarely visited place reveals a less-than-safe place. If you are bold enough to enter, those with environmental sensitivities quickly feel a hauntingly odd feeling that this is a place that the day-people are not supposed to see. You will see the things you will expect to see. Brooms, mops, and buckets rest in the corner in less than good condition. A set of shelves is affixed to a wall crammed full of a wide array of bottles. Some products are used to clean the toilet bowl. These bowl cleaners are found to contain acids that certainly aren't good for people. There is the ubiquitous white bottle of bleach that most people know as a dangerous chemical. The bleach bottle is sitting next to the ammonia bottle that is mixed with water to clean windows. You really do not want to know what will happen when you mix ammonia and bleach in a common container. The fumes that are produced that will devastate your lungs and could kill a person in short order.If one looks further, they will often find large containers of floor stripper sitting on the floor. Floor stripper is so caustic that it will blister your skin or cause blindness if not quickly washed with water. Sitting next to the stripper is the floor finish that is a combination of zinc and acrylic compounds. Floor finish is not as caustic as the floor stripper, but it also emits something called volatile organic compounds that the EPA cautions the public can have acute and chronic consequences with continued exposure. At this point, the concerned visitor will be tempted to hold his breath because he suddenly realizes that he is breathing a massive combination of potentially hazardous airborne poisons.Also in this room is an odd looking machine call a buffer. This is used to buff the stripped and newly-finished hard floors to a glossy shine. If you were around when the stripper product was applied at night, you would feel a choking impulse in your throat, and your eyes would smart and ache. When the floor finish is put down, these fumes seem less intense; but every product that dries emits a different kind of volatile organic compounds, so don't be fooled by the milder smell. When the workers turn on the buffer, you might notice that they wear masks because the buffer throws billion of small particles into the air that contain zinc and other compounds. Of course, since this is done at night, all the workers will detect in the morning are the shiny floors and a residual chemical smell.Looking further on the shelves are aerosol sprays that can't be good for the atmosphere. Some contain ozone depleting chemicals. Others have compressed gases that are released into the air circulation system of the building. You will also find spray bottles with cleaning solutions in them. Of course, the required Material Safety Data Sheets that the law requires to be posted in these areas are most often missing. Some cleaning products foam and fizzle, which means that there is a chemical reaction causing a gas release of some kind. There are cans of Comet-like scouring powers, old rags and mops, and other bottles than have an unknown purpose.One thing you will recognize is the vacuum cleaner. You are somewhat reassured that this is evidence of the competency of the service, until you dare to feel the bag to find that it probably hasn't been emptied for more than week or so. The old festering dirt is routinely stirred up each evening when these vacuums are turned on. Making things worse, these are not even the well-known HEPA vacuums that will remove more of the dirt from the air. These are the cheaper models that blow microscopic particles though each and every room that is vacuumed. Perhaps, it would have been wise to use a Green certified janitorial service after all.Another rare discovery is made when one happens to be in the office after hours. Buildings are often lonely places when the day crew has gone. This time the nightly visitation is not from a group of workers who speak an odd language, but from a crew of workers clad in Ghostbuster-type outfits carrying tanks and hoses. These are the pest killers who arrive every month or so to spray about chemicals to destroy pest and vermin. You may be mildly assured that "This stuff is safe for humans," but it will kill everything else! Few people ever know what products are being sprayed about, but these ingredients add yet another layer of potentially dangerous chemicals into the air that recycle throughout the building day after day.During your daring visit of the most unlikely places in the building, you might hazard a visit to the basement or some storage area. Here you will find all the things that the business once thought were necessary, but now reside in the limbo area of the building waiting to be eventually sent out to the trash. As you enter, your nose detects the familiar but pungently unlikable smell of mold and mildew. This happens all the time in dark and dank places. Cardboard boxes, old paper, and moisture from condensation or a slow leak are the perfect environment for mold. Mold produces yet another danger to your health known as microbial volatile organic compounds. The air exchange moves circulated air through this area as well as the rest of the building.Perhaps, you will recall the new paint in various areas, the new carpeting, or even the new furniture brought into your building over the last year. Each of these additional improvements actually brought even more fumes, smells, and outgassing opportunities that also befoul the air. Most would have thought that these improvements were positive additions to the office, but they added even more to the increasingly toxic cloud of air that workers breathe every day. Fragrances that have a chemical composition should also be consider air pollution.Workers bring in even more problems by sneezing germs into the air, introducing bacteria to the facility, and preparing food with attendant smells. The greatest shock of all is that this company is promoted as a Green business. Well, they did change some of the lights over to CFLs and made a corporate decision to buy recycled paper for all copiers. Oh yes, they even bought a Green logo off the Internet. But, the facts are clear that this is a nightmare as a Green business. The indoor air quality impacts the health of each and every worker. They breathe this accumulation of toxic substances 365 days a year for what could be a twenty year employment term.The reality is that a truly Green company must address the indoor air quality as a fundamental of all other environmental improvements. Recycling, energy savings, and source reduction are the other parts of a Green or sustainable business. Unless a company addresses the Green certification in a proper way, the results are going to be a nightmare rather than a dream. To do the job right, contact the Green Business League for serious guidance and certification. A Certified Green Consultant is the proven solution to a healthy and an environmentally friendly business. Everything else is an illusion of Green and a may have scary consequences.
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