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Understanding GS-51, Which Covers More Than 20 Product Categories Related to Laundry Care

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Since its founding in 1989, Green Seal, a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., has developed standards for more than 375 categories of products and services, from paints and adhesives to cleaning products. These standards are designed to address the environmental and social impacts of a product using a lifecycle approach—considering everything from the raw materials used to make the product to the manufacturing process and the product’s eventual disposal. This evaluation involves independent, third-party testing protocols using state-of-the-art scientific technologies that are internationally accepted.

One of Green Seal’s latest standards applies specifically to the hotel and hospitality industries for both in-house laundry and laundry sent to outside services. The standard, GS-51, which was released in January 2013, covers more than 20 product categories related to laundry care, from detergents and stain removers to static control products and fabric softeners—products that are typically used in hotel and commercial laundry operations every day.

Key Attributes of GS-51

While the standard is intended to make laundry care products safer and healthier to use, performance issues are also addressed. It is quite clear to all stakeholders that in order for a product to be accepted by the consumer, in this case hotel housekeepers and administrators, it must perform. Because of this, GS-51 has some significant performance requirements that must be met in order for the product to be certified.

Key attributes of GS-51 include the following:

Health and Environment: Many laundry care products contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as carcinogens, mutagenic or reproductively toxic ingredients, 2-butoxyethanol, diethanolamine (often abbreviated as DEA or DEOA), and ozone-depleting compounds. All of these ingredients can pose short- and long-term health and environmental risks and thus are prohibited in GS-51-certified laundry care products.

Concentration: To help promote sustainability, GS-51 establishes minimum concentration requirements for concentrated (2x) and ultra-concentrated (4x) detergents, helping to reduce packaging needs as well as the amount of fuel necessary to deliver and transport laundry care products.

Packaging: GS-51 requires that the product’s primary packaging use at least 20 percent less material than an equivalent traditional laundry care product, be recyclable, or contain 25 percent post-consumer material.* Known harmful compounds often used in packaging are not allowed.

Training: One of the most important attributes of GS-51 focuses on user training. Under the standard, training materials must contain clear, easy-to-understand instructions as to how to dilute the product and use it, as well as instructions for various water-hardness conditions. Recognizing the fact that today’s hotel and commercial laundry facilities often have multilingual staff, instructions and any labels are required to be in English as well as a second language, or they must be in English and easily understood icons that clearly point out how to properly use the product.

Manufacturer Benefits

While the benefits to hotel housekeepers, guests, and the environment are clear, some in the commercial laundry industry, such as manufacturers, may ask why they should develop products that meet GS-51 guidelines. The answer can be found by tracing the adoption curve of green cleaning products now widely used in the hotel/hospitality industry.

Until the late 1990s, green cleaning was essentially viewed as a fad. According to one cleaning expert of the era, it was predicted that at most about 20 percent of purchasers would select green cleaning products; the rest would continue selecting conventional, non-green products.

However, that is not what happened. As more and more reports were released about the potential harm of conventional cleaning products used in a commercial setting, as well as the potential health and environmental benefits of green cleaning products, the interest in green products began to build.

This is especially true in the hotel industry, which has widely embraced green and environmental practices in recent years. One expert has compared this evolution to a locomotive coming out of a train station. The train pulls out slowly but continues to gather speed as it goes.

This is what is expected to happen with green laundry care products. And those manufacturers who begin producing GS-51-certified products now will be viewed as leaders in their industry. This was true in the professional cleaning industry as well as many other industries that have adopted green products and standards.

Ultimately, the goal of Green Seal certification is to recognize and reward these manufacturing leaders as they help lessen the negative health and environmental impacts of institutional laundry care products. This will contribute to making the entire industry healthier for all involved.

Linda Chipperfield is vice president of marketing and communications for Green Seal and serves on the board of the Global Ecolabelling Network.

*Manufacturers do have the option of manufacturing the product in refillable packages with an effective take-back program.

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