Green Cleaning and Food Service

Green cleaning is cleaning for health without harming the environment. In food service, as in all areas of a school, meeting stringent public health and sanitation requirements is top priority. Enacting a green cleaning program means using environmentally preferable products and procedures to achieve that goal. Health and safety are never compromised.

The following steps offer guidelines for addressing the special product and sanitation needs of food service when initiating a green cleaning program. Remember that transitioning to green cleaning for food service is not an all or nothing process - a few small changes at a time can have significant benefits. As always, check to ensure any cleaning procedure changes are consistent with local health regulations before enacting.

Step Five: Share the Responsibility

Many times the cleaning responsibility is divided between the food service staff and the school custodians. In addition, students have a role in cleaning up after themselves, and teachers have a role in educating students about responsible behaviors.

Food service staff can:

• Educate and provide ongoing training to staff responsible for cleaning

• Encourage students to clean up after themselves and teach them how they can help promote a healthy cafeteria environment. This can be done with signage, announcements, and other creative promotions. Please note that while students should be active participants in maintaining a clean environment, cleaning chemicals should only be used by professional staff and not by students.

• Provide educational opportunities and proper signage about your cleaning and recycling programs for other users of the school building such as community groups and clubs

• Consider holding waste free lunch days. Engage your staff to use these days as an opportunity to raise awareness of these issues.

All staff can:

• Teach students the importance of recycling and make them aware of the opportunities in the lunchroom to recycle

• Teach children the importance of good hygiene and allow time for hand washing before meals. See Documents and Links to learn more about hand washing.