Both were met with skepticism by their respective departments of immunology and infectious disease, which worried that green products wouldn't be as effective as traditional cleaners.

"We were successfully able to prove that not only did they work as well, most of the product ended up working better than many of the existing toxic products," said Deirdre Imus.


That proof silenced that group of critics. But then they had the housekeeping staff to win over.

"The biggest thing is change. Especially in housekeeping departments, there are people who've been there a long time and they don't like change," said Ronchi, who has implemented Deirdre's Greening the Cleaning program at hundreds of facilities.

Part of the problem, according to Peter Lucey, can be traced back to the hospital smell. "When people begin cleaning with the new product, you don't have the heavy perfumes anymore. You don't have the deep, dark blue color like you might see in a bottle of Windex," which, Lucey explained, led some of his housekeeping staff to believe that the products weren't working. Some skeptics even went so far as to try to secretly return to their old favorite cleaners.

"Just when you think your old chemicals are gone, they reappear because people had them squirreled away in their lockers or under cabinets," said Lucey. "You'd be amazed where we would find stuff!"
Ronchi said that story has been echoed at nearly every hospital he has helped to make the transition. And in every case, education and hands-on training has been the solution.

"I'll go into a bathroom and clean the bathroom for them and then say, 'See, it works just as well as what you were using without the harsh odors, without the burning and the rashes that you may receive from using the traditional products. You don't have to use a mask when you're cleaning. You can mix all our products together and not have to worry about a poisonous gas," said Ronchi.

Ronchi also stressed the need to have a dispensing system, particularly where legally-mandated toxic disinfectants are concerned. Dispensing systems help reduce the amount of toxic chemicals that have the potential to be released into the environment, but they also help hospitals save money by reducing the amount of product while keeping the staff safe.

"It calibrates how much product is going to come out of that bottle. So if you need a half ounce of product in a gallon, that's exactly what's going to be diluted into the gallon once you add water. The staff does not have to touch the product. The dispensing system is usually in a locked container, so all the staff has to do is press a button, and it dilutes the product right into the bottle."

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