Blue Cleaning Saves Green

Blue Cleaning

Tennant’s effective and environmentally friendly products have helped revolutionize the way a wide variety of institutions polish and scrub their floors.

For colleges and universities, cleaning with electrically activated water (EAW) has evolved in recent years from an intriguing concept to a proven, very deployable alternative to cleaning with conventional packaged chemicals. In its early form, EAW emerged as a disruptive technology that electrically converts water into a solution that cleans effectively, reduces the cost to clean, improves safety, minimizes the environmental impact of cleaning operations and reduces chemical-related tasks, costs and concerns.

In 2007, broad adoption of EAW truly began when Tennant Company launched ec-H2O technology as an “on-board technology” for hard floor scrubbers. Since then, Tennant has sold more than $600 million worth of scrubbers to a wide array of institutions.

As adoption escalated, customers in the education market began looking for EAW solutions that would allow them to clean more surfaces such as glass, tables, stainless steel and carpeting. From there, the next generation of on-site EAW generators emerged. The early on-site generation EAW systems offered high cleaning solution productivity rates. But they were large, had only a cleaning output and required centralized filling. As a result, these EAW systems were exceptionally effective for cleaning large facilities, but were not practical for broad-scale adoption across university campuses.

Aramark, a global services company that provides facility management and building services to colleges and universities throughout the U.S., recognized the potential for EAW early on. The company identified EAW as a core technology for achieving cost savings, campus safety and sustainability goals at the schools it served.

“The results (using EAW technologies) were so compelling that we formalized our approach and now call it Blue Cleaning,” says Matt Judge, senior director of innovation and expertise for Aramark.

“We are not making incremental improvements or taking small steps toward cost reduction, safety and sustainability goals,” notes Judge. “Our Blue Cleaning processes and the EAW technologies we are deploying allow colleges and universities to make huge leaps forward.”

www.tennantco.com

This article originally appeared in the issue of .

Featured

  • California K–12 District Finishes Renovations on Multi-Sport Stadium

    The Alameda Unified School District (AUSD) in Alameda, Calif., recently announced the completion of a renovation project on the Encinal Jr. & Sr. High School stadium, according to a news release. The district partnered with Quattrocchi Kwok Architects (QKA) and Bothman Construction on the facility, and funding came from Bond Measure B.

  • Houston-Area High School Breaks Ground on 117,000SF Multi-Use Facility

    North Shore Senior High School, part of Galena Park ISD in Houston, Texas, recently broke ground on a new multi-use facility for student extracurriculars, according to a news release. The North Shore Multi-Use Facility will include dedicated practice and training space for the school’s athletics and fine arts programs.

  • Massachusetts K–12 District Selects Architect for New Junior High

    Swansea Public Schools in Swansea, Mass., recently announced that it has selected Finegold Alexander Architects to design a new junior high school for the district, according to a news release. The firm will create the Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for Joseph Case Junior High School after a lengthy selection process by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).

  • Spaces4Learning Launches 2026 Education Design Showcase Awards

    Spaces4Learning has opened submissions for the 2026 Education Design Showcase! The awards program launched in 1999 with the goal of celebrating innovative, practical solutions in the planning, design, and construction of K–12 and higher-education facilities. EDS recognizes new developments that help achieve optimal learning environments, as well as the architecture firms that brought the ideas to life.