We are always looking for resources to improve facilities for the benefit of their users. One such online resource for a better, safer built environment is The Healthy Facilities Institute.
Boasting a stellar advisory board with PhDs in Public Health, Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk, environmental microbiologists, building science and indoor air quality specialists, work environment and sustainable hospitals experts, and toxic use reduction scientists, the HFI is poised to advise workplace and healthcare professionals how to make their domains healthier.
The Healthy Facilities Institute (HFI) strives to provide authoritative information for creating and maintaining clean, healthy indoor environments. Since buildings are ecosystems, HFI works to address the many interrelated aspects of built environments — such as air, water, energy, materials and resources, green cleaning, indoor environmental quality, waste management, people and more — as an integrated or holistic system. Inasmuch as “Clean” is a metaphor for healthy indoor spaces, HFI also emphasizes prevention and removal of pollutants or contaminants to help ensure optimum conditions for living, learning and working.
Facilities managers will benefit from the types of advisories the site offers. Recently, the HFI advised how some cleaning products designed to make our buildings cleaner and healthier may contribute to asthma. Many people suffer from cleaning chemicals used in the workplace, and there used to be few alternatives.
According to K.D. Rosenman, MD, Department of Medicine, Michigan State University: “Cleaning products contain a diverse group of chemicals . . . their potential to cause or aggravate asthma has recently been recognized.”
The Healthy Facilities Institute therefore recommends limiting or targeting the use of products containing ingredients such as bleach, quaternary ammonium compounds or “quats”, phthalates, and harmful (volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and considering appropriate alternative chemistries or non-chemical options.
“That is not to say that products containing these ingredients are inherently bad; it’s important to recognize that these chemistries do serve a useful purpose,” said Allen Rathey, founder and president of The Health Facilities Institute (HFI). “However, it’s equally important to recognize the need for caution, to target these chemistries to proper applications, and to consider alternative and more benign methods where effective and practical.”
Ingredients such as bleach, quats, phthalates, and many VOCs found in typical cleaning products have all been associated with causing asthma or other respiratory ills.
Use of quats – compounds in floor cleaners and disinfecting products – may also promote asthma. Volatile ingredients in foodservice or kitchen cleaning formulas, furniture polishes, and other cleaners can irritate mucous membranes and contribute to respiratory disease.
Prudent avoidance of products containing suspect ingredients makes sense, especially when practical alternatives are available. Good ventilation is also vital when products containing potentially asthma-promoting ingredients are used.
