HOW TO KILL YOUR CLEANING STAFF
A “really” green guide to cleaning
By Kevin Daum
Copyright 2008-02-26
www.oillift.net
Index
What’s killing your cleaning staff? 6
Cleaners, safety and children 8
Cancer-causing agents or carcinogens 8
The cleaning products game of musical chairs 10
I
t’s
amazing that in our modern world with so many safety regulations and
procedures to protect worker health and safety that very little
attention is paid to the daily toxic exposure of people in the
janitorial field.
Supposedly, we have entered the time of the green revolution; people actually really want to know how to go green. This guide will allow you to understand how to green your cleaning practices and hopefully have a couple of laughs.
It is an excellent tool for educating employees and homeowners’ on the dangers of toxic cleaners and solvents. It will also educate you on spotting “green wash”. This is the practice of labelling something as green when in fact, it’s not.
Please feel free to copy this booklet and pass it out to your employees so that they are empowered to green your work and home environment.
If we can be of any assistance in helping to detoxify your environment and help you save money please contact us.
Best regards
Kevin Daum
Founder and President
Save The Oceans Incorporated
www.oillift.net
Imagine a salesperson shows up at your home and takes out a bottle of poison; he then dilutes it with some water and pours it into a spray bottle.
He then tells you he wants you to spray this around your home or office every day. What would you tell him or more precisely, where would you tell him to go?
Sadly, in reality, sales people never do this. They run pretty ads with women dancing around with mops acting like idiots that tell you how wonderful and clean your home will be when you use their super duper cleaner.
The problem is how you as a consumer or even a professional janitor expected to know what’s in these cleaners when even professional chemists can be confused.
Let’s have a look at some product claims:
All natural?
All natural is a great marketing buzzword; it leads you to believe that because it’s natural, it’s good for you. Well did you know cobra venom is all natural? Would you like some? The fact is just because something is natural does not mean it won’t hurt you.
How about bio-degradable?
D
id
you know that uranium and plutonium are bio-degradable?
It may take a few million years yet they do eventually break down.
The real question is “what do they kill in the meantime?”
Non toxic?
Have you ever put vinegar on your fish and chips? Did it hurt you? Obviously not. Did you know that if you take vinegar and pour it into a fish tank you will kill all the fish? My point here is that the term non toxic is not valid unless you consider the application. Even water if you drink too much of it can kill you. Toxicity is not a marketing buzzword.
The list of ingredients
Of all the tricks green washers use to sell toxic cleaners, my favourite is: “look we list all of our ingredients on the label.” If it’s a food product, this is a good rule. However, every year thousands of new chemical compounds are introduced to the marketplace. Even a professional chemist would have a hard time keeping up with this amount of information. How can you be expected as a consumer to understand the safety of these ingredients?
When it comes to cleaning products and other chemical compounds the only real safeguard for consumers is reputable third party validation. Fortunately there are 29 eco-logo validation programs worldwide. In Canada we have the eco-logo, in the USA, you have the green seal and in Europe they have several. The bottom line is if you don’t see the certifications don’t believe the claims.
Y
our
choices in cleaners’
Simply put, use baking soda and vinegar and some elbow grease or choose a valid eco certified cleaner
Have you ever been to a trade show and watched a salesperson try to tell you that their product is so green you can drink it? This happened to me, the salesperson put a little bit on her tongue. I said: “that doesn’t prove anything actually drink some”. The sales person backed down. The sad truth is that parents will buy these cleaners’ and place them under the sink where children can get their hands on them. Every year thousands of children are poisoned with cleaners’ that are unsafely stored. If you forget everything you’ve read in this book remember this one thing don’t drink cleaning products and store them out of reach of children.
When I tell people there are carcinogens in their cleaners, many people say: “so what, everything gives you cancer today.” Even if this is the case, how intelligent is it to go out of your way to put more carcinogens in your body? It’s about as smart as taking a bottle of poison and spraying it around your house every day.
What people need to know is that according to one study (1) done in New Jersey there are 30 times more toxins in your home than in industry. The number one source of these toxins is your cleaners’. So get rid of them. This is simple common sense, replace them with safe cleaners.
The exact number of persons suffering from chemical sensitivity is unclear, but the rise in asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention deficit disorder, and second-hand smoke lung disease are all examples of this illness. A study (2) of 24,000 students at Northern Texas University revealed 25 (normals) for chemical toxicity (0.1%). In other words only 25 out of 24,000 students had normal toxicity levels. Do you think that the number one source of toxins might have something to do with this?
E
xposing
your skin your eyes and your lungs to toxic cleaners and solvents
repeatedly can cause rashes, dizziness, breathing problems, skin
damage, and a whole
variety of other problems not to mention permanent damage to your
internal organs.
All cleaners, including vinegar and baking soda, should be handled with care. Rubber gloves, eye glasses and if necessary, a mask.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDC’s for short are possibly the most frightening thing in cleaning products. Basically they react with other chemicals and disrupt the hormones in your body.
They also accumulate in your fatty tissue and organs and sabotage fertility. (3)
When a beluga whale dies and ends up on the banks of
the Saint Lawrence river the carcass must be taken away
and treated as hazardous waste. When scientists studied
diseases and toxicity of these whales they discovered that
they had the same illnesses as the animals and humans on
land. The point is that the toxins are in the water. (4)
Do you remember the frogs? I do. When I was growing up they were everywhere. What happened to them? What most people don’t understand is that frogs are very sensitive to chemicals; they are barometers for pollution in the water as they die quickly when a water area is polluted.
W
hen
you clean your home, wash your
house or driveway, fertilize the lawn or use pesticides the chemicals
that you use all wash down the drain. These drains lead to streams,
which lead to rivers, which ultimately lead to the ocean. Our
aquatic world is dying. All of life on earth depends on clean water.
In 1997 approximately 23% of water bodies in North America were
considered dead. In other words you could not swim in the water or
eat the fish. Today, in 2008, it’s approximately 50 %.(5)
Do you remember playing musical chairs as a kid? It wasn’t any fun when you were the only kid who did not get a chair. What you may not realize is that you’re still playing the game when it comes to cleaning products.
When you go into a store you see this huge aisle of cleaners. So you choose a cleaner that says it will work on whatever you’re trying to clean. You take it home; you try it; it works on some things and it doesn’t work on others. Next time you’re in the store you choose another cleaner and take it home and it works on some things and it doesn’t work on others. This goes on and on. A few months later, all the labels have changed they say new and improved etc. So, you start all over again. Eventually, you end up with a house filled with poisons. Now to get rid of these, you either spray the poison around the house or you pour it down the drain. To add injury to insult, if you pack up all these cleaners and try to dispose of them you’ll discover they’re classified as hazardous waste. Can I offer you a chair?
As humans, we do a lot of stupid things. Hopefully when we’re educated we change our behaviour. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
My goal and the reason I founded my company was to prove to people that they can have the cleaning results they want, save money and stop the destruction of our aquatic world. To accomplish this goal, people need to know the truth about what they buy be it a service or product. This is why I wrote this guide. In fact, we are in the process of making a movie called the oceans plan. www.Oceansplan.com
T
he
only caveat to this proposition is you actually need the replacement
product that really works
far better than the toxic products. This is why we created patented
“Oil lift and lift brand cleaners”.
I am not going to try to sell you on using my product. What I will do is provide you the list of celebrity endorsements for my product so that you can check it out for yourself.
If you choose to become my customer please write us at info@oillift.net and let us know what you cleaned and any other tips and helpful hints.
Happy Cleaning,
Kevin Daum
Sources:
Toxins in home New Jersey. Washington toxics coalition.
Chemical Sensitivity, It's a Serious Problem More Often Than You Think!!! by Adrienne Buffaloe, MD
Reproductive damage, Our Stolen Future, Colborn,Dumanoski,Myers 1996
Cancer in Wildlife, Maritneau, Lemberger, Dallaire, from Detoxify or Die, Sherry Rodgers, MD
EPA
Note: Celebrities were not paid for endorsement
Jon Eakes, Home and Garden TV
“
It was inevitable that someone would
come up with a better idea. It is called Oil
Lift™. This non-toxic bio-degradable
substance from British Columbia draws the
oil up out of the asphalt, brick or concrete and puts it into a water
suspension where it will not stain the surface around the stain. Although
you should soak up as much as you can, you can actually hose off the
work without making more of a mess. Although even this will not
completely remove all stains (where was that driveway sealer before you
dripped oil on your driveway?) it works as well or better than the
traditional cleaners without the side effects of spreading the stain, eating
the surface or polluting the environment worse than the oil.”
www.joneakes.com
The Fred and Gerry Home Improvement Show
“You’ve heard us talk about Oil Lift™ on
the radio, maybe seen us with Oil Lift™
on TV, along with a trade show. It’s a
revolutionary product that no home
should be without. Here are just a few of
some good cleaning application for Oil Lift™: car, truck and heavy
equipment, engine, hub caps and tires, washing vehicles, brakes parts,
oily cloths tar on cars, oil on shoes or boots, tool boxes, oil on cement
,oil on asphalt floors ,vehicle windshields, vinyl interiors, plastics,
bathroom, kitchens, stoves, barbecues, tile grout, boat bilges, plastic
shower stalls, oil on log cabins, soap scum, coffee pots, fiberglass,
cleaning thermos, removing grease stains from clothes………. And
guess what, it’s an environmentally friendly product that works!”
"When
every home and business
in the world adopts a “toxic free
approach” to cleaning we will
significantly reduce our impact …
Fin Donnelly swimming
the Fraser River
…on creeks, rivers, lakes and oceans. Kevin Daum and his
team at Save The Oceans Inc. have invented
an amazing line of eco-certified cleaners that everyone should
k
now
about and use. The
thinking behind these
products needs to be replicated throughout the
entire business community.”
Global Forest Science
Host of Dr. Reese’s Planet on PBS
“Oil
Lift™
and the patented oil clean
up and recycling process is one of the
most remarkable inventions of the 21st
century. Drop by drop it is helping to
save our oceans by cleaning up oil
and eliminating the need for toxic
cleaners and solvents.”
Consider this:
This one cleaning kit contains a 32 oz bottle of Oil lift™ Cleaner Degreaser, wipe cloth and a duel chamber spray bottle which makes you $100 to $300 of cleaner depending on the application. See the video and applications on our web site www.oillift.net
Every time you buy a bottle of Oil lift™ ten to twenty bottles of toxic cleaners are not needed or shipped.
Oil lift replaces 90% of cleaners and does a better cleaning job.
Now you have a choice! ™
Contact us to:
S
ave
Money
Save Time
Save the Environment
and Save your Janitor
Distributed by:
Save The Oceans Inc.
Copyright 2008
www.oillift.net