When you trust a company to launder and deliver your uniforms and linens, you want to be assured that they are using best practices throughout the process. Running an efficient business benefits everyone – owners, employees, communities and customers. An indication of a responsible company is their commitment to operating a clean, eco-conscious facility. One way to quantify this commitment is through the Textile Rental Service Association’s (TRSA) Clean Green designation.
What is Clean Green?
TRSA, a national trade association for the textile services industry, provides third-party verification that products from a facility are laundered in an environmentally friendly manner. Their voluntary Clean Green program holds textile services performance to rigorous standards for reusing, reclaiming and recycling resources. A business that obtains this certification is considered a leader in minimizing waste.
Certification Process
Once a facility applies for Clean Green status, laundries must document their efficiencies in water and energy use. Next, through onsite inspections, TRSA evaluates and scores several best management practices. These include water reuse technology, wastewater heat recovery, wastewater pre-treatment and many others. The facility’s recycling program and detergents are also taken into account.
To be certified, a company with 10 or more plants must have 90% of their submitting plants meet the certification requirements; companies with less than 10 plants must have 75% meet the requirements. Since this is a company-wide certification program, all plants must be evaluated, which means sustainability is a top priority across the company.
To ensure that efforts, improvements and training are ongoing, a facility must re-apply for certification every three years.
What Does This Mean for Customers?
It’s in a company’s best interest to be a responsible community partner. By choosing to implement sustainability efforts, environmental impact is reduced, which in turn helps customers reduce their carbon footprint. They can be confident that the company’s work production is optimizing best practices and taking the necessary care with their garments and linens.
Clean Green certification signifies that a facility exercises good judgment in their use of natural resources and provides the highest possible levels of product cleanliness. Also, an industrial launderer is much more efficient than having employees care for their own garments. Because textile services companies can process large loads, their drying process uses less than half as much energy per pound of laundry as home washers and dryers.
Ask the Questions
When choosing a textile services operation, make sure to ask about their sustainability initiatives and top priorities. Are they continuing to introduce new technology? Are they investing in environmentally friendly operations? How are they reducing their carbon footprint? And don’t forget to ask if they are Clean Green certified.
Find out more about Canadian Linen's Clean Green certification.