When most government purchasers were in elementary school, the three R's were Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmatic. Now in many school districts the three R's are Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Schools are both teaching students about environmental issues and adopting greener practices. One of the easiest and most popular green initiatives is buying greener cleaning chemicals and tissue products.

"Greener cleaning is growing everywhere, but it is growing fastest among schools," explains Mike Sawchuk, vice president for EnviroSolutions, a company that sells greener cleaning chemicals certified by both EcoLogo and Green Seal.

Why schools?

According to Mark Bishop of the Chicago-based Healthy Schools Campaign, there are 53 million students and 5 million school staff members learning or working at U.S. schools every school day. Half of them work in buildings with polluted indoor air, chemical fumes, pesticides, molds and other toxins. Some of the poor indoor air quality and related hazards are linked to chemicals used to clean the buildings.

"Green cleaning helps students stay healthy and learn," says Bishop. "Children are more vulnerable to the hazards associated with traditional cleaning products than adults."

Other school safety advocates agree. "Children are not little adults," notes Claire Barnett, executive director of the New York-based Healthy Schools Network. "Their rapidly growing bodies are much more susceptible than adults to environmental pollutants, including the chemicals found in many traditional cleaners."

Bishop points out, however, that green cleaning is not just about better human health and environmental benefits. It is also about saving money.

"What surprised us in working with purchasing professionals and schools across the country is that green cleaning is actually saving schools money," Bishop says. "Chemical costs remain about the same, although the products schools buy changes. The actual savings come from fewer worker injuries and improved productivity because they are using less hazardous products."

The Green Purchasing Institute and Green Schools Initiative have documented the money schools have saved by adopting greener cleaning approaches including:

• The Palm Beach County School District in Florida is anticipating an annual $360,000 district-wide savings following a three-month pilot project in which a single school saved $500 buying green-certified products.
• Kurt Larson, who has been involved helping New York State implement its green cleaning in schools law, reports schools are saving money by reducing the number of different cleaning products purchased and substituting a certified green cleaner instead. The concentrated green cleaners require less product to be effective, thus lowering costs.
• Northern Tioga County School District in Pennsylvania eliminated expensive aerosols to improve indoor air quality and produced a $20,000 annual savings.
• Other localities reporting similar savings include the city and county of San Francisco; Minneapolis; Nassau County, N.Y.; Seattle; Hawaii and others.

Greener cleaning: It's the law

Government purchasers began buying cleaning chemicals and tissue products with reduced human health and environmental profiles in the 1990s. Massachusetts; King County, Wash.; Santa Monica, Calif.; Toronto; and others began specifying biodegradable cleaning chemicals with less toxic ingredients and tissue papers with recycled content and other environmentally preferable attributes. As the prices and performance of these greener products improved to meet or exceed those of traditional products, more government purchasers began specifying them.

Greener cleaning practices have proven so successful and affordable that they are rapidly becoming the norm. In many places, green cleaning is the law.

About a dozen state governments have passed or are considering green cleaning legislation. Frequently focused on schools, new laws are requiring products to be EcoLogo- or Green Seal-certified or to meet comparable requirements before they can be used in public buildings.

New York was the first state to pass a green cleaning bill in 2005. Illinois adopted similar legislation the following year, followed by Maine and Missouri. Hawaii passed a green cleaning law in 2009. Additional bills are being considered in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Iowa, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey and Wisconsin. Other states have adopted green cleaning mandates or guidelines, including Maryland, Missouri and Nevada.

While various approaches are being adopted — some states require green cleaning in schools while others only "encourage" it — there are many similarities in their approaches, particularly related to how they define greener cleaning.