As local and state guidelines begin allowing your restaurant or bar to reopen, it is critical to maintain safety to ensure that you, your employees, and your patrons are not going to be endangered by COVID-19 (or other diseases) due to a faulty cleaning process.

In this post we’re going to cover the proper way to clean table or bar top surfaces as fast and effectively as possible as part of a daily cleaning process.  Remember to use proper PPE before getting started.

REQUIRED ITEMS:

• Personal Protective equipment: Gloves and safety glasses
• All Purpose Cleaner
• Germicide
• Clean rags
• Mop and bucket

BEFORE DAILY OPENING

1. Clean all touchable non-food contact surfaces (which can also include door knobs, computers, counter tops, phones, menus, or condiment dispensers) with an All Purpose Cleaner following manufacturer recommend directions.
   This will allow the disinfectant in Step 2 to perform at it’s maximum effectiveness.
2. Generously spray germicidal disinfectant on treated surfaces and allow to remain wet for 10 minutes for maximum efficiency, then wipe down with clean cloth.
   Ideally, spray and move across cleaning operation, circling back at given time frame to wipe dry.
3. Mop floors with germicidal disinfectant and allow to remain wet for 10 minutes, followed by mopping up excess liquid.

DURING BUSINESS HOURS

After a table is used, spray surfaces on tables and chairs and allow to remain wet for at least 1 minute, then air dry or wipe with clean cloth.  All touchable surfaces can be sanitized in the same manner multiple times throughout the day.

AFTER DAILY CLOSING

Spray down all surfaces the same way as in the Before Daily Opening steps.

This is just a general guideline on how to maintain a safer environment for all occupants in your business.  You may need to modify based on your systems and labor requirements.

That’s because companies and government bodies primarily want their cleaning products to work. They want them to be powerful and effective. They also need them to leave a small eco footprint—and sometimes, these things can be mutually exclusive.

HIGH STANDARDS IN CALIFORNIA

To consider just how high the ecological standard is in California, look no further than to CARB Rule 109, which contains within it Southern California’s SCAQMD (Southern California Air Quality Management District) rule 1171(g)(1). Here there is a lengthy list of rules that suppliers and end users must follow, especially with regard to the VOC content that is allowable in a cleaning product or other solution.

VOCs are volatile organic compounds. As the Environmental Protection Agency notes, VOCs “are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands.”

That California law, meanwhile, seeks to “reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds

(VOCs), toxic air contaminants, and stratospheric ozone-depleting or global-warming compounds from the use, storage and disposal of solvent cleaning materials in solvent cleaning operations and activities.”

MAINTAINING COMPLIANCE

The bottom line: In California, it’s critically important to know what the VOC content in your cleaning products is—and even to keep a log of your total VOC emission. Alternatively, you can seek out cleaning products that qualify as low-VOC, and are therefore exempt from these standards.

Fortunately, Enviroform’s products are built to meet those standards and can be used within a building/enclosed area, undiluted, and still meet the compliance requirements under the AQMD rule specified above. Especially noteworthy is our COBRA Degreaser, which provides powerful grease removal capacities and still qualifies as low-VOC.

To ensure VOC compliance in California, we invite you to learn more about this product today.

Today, however, these regulatory issues are key concerns. It’s not enough for companies to find cleaning products that work. They must also think about the environment. They must also consider the kind of ecological footprint that a cleaning product leaves, and how that may or may not run afoul of environmental compliance standards.

These compliance standards are numerous, and touch on everything to the sourcing of your products to the VOCs used. Here is a term that may warrant a quick explanation: What are VOCs, and what should you know about VOC compliance?

WHAT ARE VOCS?

VOC stands for volatile organic compound. California law, which is particularly rigid with regard to air quality and pollution, defines the term this way: “Any volatile compound of carbon, excluding carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonic acid, metallic carbides or carbonates, ammonium carbonate, and [a few additional] exempt compounds.”

The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, declares this: “Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands.”

WHAT IS VOC COMPLIANCE?

VOC compliance is a big deal, particularly in California. Here, stringent clean air initiatives require that certain company owners and operators keep precise records of how they are using products that might emit VOCs.

For business entities in California, then, there are a great many regulatory headaches that can be avoided simply by investing in cleaning products that are certified as low VOC. Of course, it is important to ensure that these cleaning agents are effective, too.

This, in a nutshell, is the mission of Enviroform: To provide products that allow for regulatory compliance to be upheld while also offering full potency and effectiveness. A good example of this is our COBRA Degreaser, a powerful grease-removing product that fully qualifies for low-VOC exemptions in the State of California.

Learn more about this or our other eco-conscious products by visiting the Enviroform Industries website.

So what is the Safer Products distinction? Originally known as the “Design for the Environment” program, Safer Products helps consumers and businesses make smarter purchases—finding products that are effective and perform well, but also leave a minimal environmental footprint. More information about this EPA program is available here.

Products that meet these criteria are worthy of the “Safer Choice” label, something that more and more environmentally aware consumers and corporate purchasers are looking for. Ultimately, this label denotes a recommended alternative: A product that may be comparable in effect to another, more popular item, but ultimately comes with much less risk of adverse impact on human health or the environment.

Notes the EPA, “To be considered safer choices, potential alternatives should exhibit as many of the following characteristics as possible: they should be technically feasible; provide an improved profile for health and the environment; account for social considerations; and have the potential to result in lasting change.”

This program was developed with the assistance of manufacturers and product formulators, but also eco activists. The EPA explains: “Environmentalists have provided important insight on chemical characteristics, especially for defining the green end of the health/environmental spectrum, as well as identifying ways to ensure confidence in partnership environmental results.”

We are glad that such a distinction exists, and believe it is important for consumers to know what safe, healthy, and green choices are available to them, in particular with regard to cleaning products. We are gladder still to note that so many of our products, including the Oxy-Green multipurpose cleaner, fits the standards of Safer Choices.

Learn more about our products and our eco commitment at our website.