Building Services Management-Solutions For Today's Facility Maintenance Professional

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Facility Safety Management

Protecting What’s Important

Simply Good Business, LEED Points, Mats Help Green Buildings

Green Buildings are designed to protect the health and safety of their occupants, maximizing their comfort and productivity, while minimizing the impact on the environment. Studies have documented productivity increases of between .5 and 7 percent from greener indoor office environments.

Based on these numbers alone, Green Buildings are simply good business. Green Cleaning is most simply defined as cleaning to protect health without harming the environment. Green Cleaning is a comprehensive approach to maintaining a facility; including chemicals, equipment, paper, supplies, entry way mats and procedures that minimize the impact of cleaning on human health and the environment, said Scott Andersen, of the Andersen Co, which makes high-performance matting systems.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that indoor air may be two to five times as polluted as the air outside.

Other research shows that 70 percent to 80 percent of the dust, dirt, and contaminants that enter a building are tracked in from the outside on people’s feet. Building managers and maintenance professionals have a responsibility to protect the owners’ investment in buildings, grounds, and furnishings. As we learn more about the impacts of cleaning on human health, we begin to understand our responsibility to protect the occupants and other users of the building as well as the surrounding environment.

Today’s mats are designed to help stop contaminants before they enter a building, saving cleaning time, labor, and money, making your building safer, and helping to prevent slip & falls, said Andersen.

Green building credits can be earned through high performance entrance mats manufactured with rubber backing with 25 percent recycled content. The maker of such mats as the Waterhog, the Andersen Co. is the first matting company to join the U.S. Green Building Council, developer of LEED, the voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high performance, sustainable buildings. LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) and LEED for Existing Buildings (LEEDEB) certification may be achieved by meeting specific standards of design, materials, processes, and procedures.

Key criteria includes the control of contaminants entering a building. LEED credits may be achieved by specifying and using the proper matting systems inside and outside of all entry ways. It is also important to use the proper matting between adjoining areas in a facility, for example between a factory plant and office areas.

Controlling Dirt and Costs

Over three-quarters of the dust, dirt, and contaminants in a building come through the door on people’s feet, damaging carpets, floors, and adding to the cost of maintenance.

It’s been estimated that one square yard of carpet can accumulate a pound or more of dirt in just a week. In most buildings, the cost of maintaining the floors is the single largest cost of cleaning. Removing a single pound of dirt from a building can cost more than $600. An effective matting program can not only help protect the occupants of a building, but can also protect your bottom line.

Performance

The key issue with mats is performance life. High-performance mats made with a permanent bi-level construction can have a performance life of many years. Mats without a rubber reinforced permanent bi-level construction have a 90 - 180 day performance life. To function effectively in a Green Building, these low performance mats will need to be replaced more frequently, increasing costs and causing disposal issues.

Four Things an Entrance Mat Should Do

Andersen recommends the following features in a high-performance entrance mat system:

• Stop Soil & Water at the Door: Surprisingly, not all mats are designed to do this.

Choose a mat that will provide a combination of scraping and wiping to stop the maximum amount of contaminants.

• Store Soil & Water for Removal: Choose Mats designed for maximum storage of soil & water and ease of removal when the mat is cleaned.

• Minimize Tracking of Soil & Water: Accomplish this with a permanent rubber reinforced, bi-level construction that provides an upper surface for walking and a lower area to store soil & water for later removal.

• Provide a Safe Surface: The bottom of the mats should be slip-resistant to minimize movement on the floor under traffic.

Seek a “water dam” border that contains moisture below the traffic level to help prevent slip/fall incidents. Rubber backed mats provide better slip resistance.

Green Cleaning and Green Buildings are not “fads,” they represent a serious approach to improving the quality of our indoor environment while protecting the outdoor environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency has developed a green purchasing guideline for use by government agencies, and the GSA has added improvements to the indoor environmental quality of all its buildings to its strategic objectives.

The Andersen Co. is a part of these efforts through its participation in the US Green Building Council. For more information about Green Cleaning and LEED, go to www.usgbc.org, and www.andersenco.com.