Green Clean Victory in Illinois!

by Mark Bishop, HSC Deputy Director

Wow!

After years of implementing pilot programs, developing recommendations, and creating networks of supporters from health, education and industry, we've gotten the State of Illinois to adopt green cleaning requirements for Illinois schools! 

This afternoon, the Illinois Senate voted 52-5 to pass the Green Clean Schools Act. (Check out our press release for details.)

Illinois will now become the second state to have a green cleaning requirement for schools, after New York. Thank you to everyone who has helped us pass this important health-promoting legislation.

So what’s going to happen next?

Well, the bill will be sent to the Governor to sign. The state will then have 180 days to develop green cleaning standards and schools will then have an additional 90 days before they are required to comply with the standards.

It's important to note that schools will be allowed to use their existing stock of cleaning chemicals – they won’t need to throw away or waste any usable products – but will only be able to purchase new products that comply with the standards when they replenish their supplies.

With the 900 school districts in Illinois purchasing green cleaning products, we are driving the market to a greener and healthier place!

Comments

[Peg Walker]

Wow! Congrats. Peg

[Toni Liquori]

Congratulations!! With all of the work coming forward on sustainability and greening, I am wondering about the basic connection with food and school meals. How can we re-connect as these are not separate conversations and should not be viewed as separate or different types of work?

Toni

[Renee]

What a great victory!

I would love to get in contact with students, parents, teachers, and school faculty on how to include paper purchasing in greening your school.

There are many ways to have your school be ancient forest friendly. Several colleges and universities have started the trend, including Rice University, Harvard, and the University of Miami. Let's get K-12 schools standing up for forest protection too!!

All the best,
Renee Blanchard
Forest Campaign Associate

[Mark Bishop]

Thanks Renee. One of the things that we are excited for is that in the rules making process, we had to define a green cleaning program. The draft rules currently include requirements for recycled paper - Green Seal, EcoLogo or EPA's procurement guidelines.