IAQ and You: One custodians’ view of Indoor Air Quality issues and some modest proposals
By Pat Nicholson
Wherever food or drink is allowed, there will be spills. It’s the law! (the law of gravity)Despite all of our best intentions, when we eat and drink, we also spill. When we spill food and drink, it most often ends up on the floor (see Newton’s Second Law).
If you allow eating and drinking in your carpeted classroom on a regular basis, you just might have an indoor air quality problem!
The School Indoor Air Quality Best Practices Manual* states that "To reduce the potential for contamination from food spillage, food should be eaten in the cafeteria or gymnasium, not in classrooms. This is particularly important in classrooms that are carpeted". Eating and drinking in hard surfaced areas such as the cafeteria means spills can be quickly cleaned up by simply sweeping and mopping. Cleaning up the same spill on a classroom carpet requires specialized equipment, chemicals, and much more custodial expertise and time. And because spills on classroom carpets often go unreported and aren’t always cleaned up immediately or completely, the soiled carpets then attract insects and vermin as well as feed the growth of bacteria and molds creating conditions directly leading to poor indoor air quality. Taking the time to properly clean food and drink spills on classrooms carpets indirectly effects indoor air quality by taking away time from other cleaning tasks that greatly effect IAQ such as dusting and vacuuming.
If instead of hauling your old sofa to the dump, you brought it into your classroom, you just might have an indoor air quality problem!
The School Indoor Air Quality Best Practices Manual* also says that "staff should not bring
items that may present indoor air quality problems into classrooms or offices. Stuffed furniture and toys have contributed to the spread of head lice in schools. Fleecy materials such as pillows, furniture, and rugs can harbor biological agents". Again, not only may IAQ be directly effected by presents of personal items such as these in the classroom, but the time spent cleaning them and cleaning around them is time taken away from other cleaning activities indirectly effecting indoor air quality.
If your classroom looks more like a used office furniture warehouse than a standard classroom, you just might have an indoor air quality problem!
Classrooms that have a high degree of obstruction due to extra tables chairs and desks, un-stored educational items, personal items, etc… take longer to clean than classrooms that are more normally equipped and organized. If every classroom was in compliance with the fire code mandated minimum of 24" aisle ways in classrooms there would be a lot less obstruction, and more thorough vacuuming resulting in higher IAQ. Due to lowered custodial staffing, there is only so much time allotted for cleaning each classroom. It’s an unfortunate fact that classrooms that have a higher degree of obstruction get a less thorough vacuuming and dusting than classrooms with a lesser degree of obstruction, resulting in lowered IAQ in highly obstructed classrooms. For example, classrooms where the students stack the chairs on top of their desks at the end of the day are much less obstructed than classrooms where the chairs remain on the floor and consequently receive a more thorough vacuuming given the same amount of time.
If your custodian is still using a vacuum designed in a previous century, you just might have an indoor air quality problem!
The cloth bag upright vacuums which were used exclusively in my school district before 1994 were state of the art, in the 1890’s! The cloth bags filter out particles only down to 10 microns (1 micron = 1/25000 of an inch) at about 30% efficiency. All particles smaller than 10 microns (and 70% of those of 10 microns) pass through the vacuum and are dispersed into the air by the vacuum and onto mostly horizontal surfaces creating a dusting problem. It’s these small particles that cause a lot of the IAQ problems. In 1994 multistage filtered backpack vacuums were introduced to my school district. These vacuums filter out particles down to 1 micron, an increase of 10 times over the cloth bag upright. And they work at 99.9% efficiency at 1 micron, a huge improvement above the 30% efficiency at 10 microns for the cloth bag upright. Most if not all custodians have switched to the more efficient multistage filtered backpack vacuums. Because my school district in the past 20 years has gone from mostly tiled to mostly carpeted floors, the custodial department has had to develop and adopt a more comprehensive carpet cleaning program to maintain and increase IAQ by changing over to more efficient vacuums and specialized carpet cleaning equipment such as large area extractors, small spotters, carpet fans, as well as safer and less reactive cleaning chemicals and training custodial staff. To do all this with less custodial staff has put an extra strain on the time available for cleaning which has an indirect effect on IAQ.
If you have a student in your classroom with questionable personal hygiene habits, you just might have and indoor air quality problem!
The School Indoor Air Quality Best Practices Manual* states that "schools are unique buildings from a public health perspective because they accommodate many people within a small area compared to most buildings. This close proximity increases the potential for contaminants to pass among students and staff. Raising students’ awareness about the effects of their habits on the well being of other students can help reduce indoor air quality problems". Not only does a students’ (or staff members’) personal habits effect IAQ, but the condition they leave their desk area at the end of the day effects the cleaning of the room and overall IAQ. Just stacking the chair on top of their desk and picking up and properly storing books papers and pencils in their desk instead of on the floor greatly decreases the degree of obstruction allowing a more thorough vacuuming and a higher level of IAQ. Having students pick up trash and other small debris too large to vacuum up will also greatly enhance vacuuming. If the custodian has to pick up one or more items under each student desk in order to vacuum, the time allowed for vacuuming will be cut in about half, resulting in lower IAQ. Though learning to pick up after ones self may not help a student pass the WASL, it may help create and reinforce good personal habits that will benefit the student and the world in the future.
Some Modest Proposals
Here are a few modest proposals that are meant to increase awareness of what staff and students can do to help increase IAQ in their classrooms and throughout the school environment.
Though it would be difficult to eliminate food and drink entirely from carpeted classrooms, taking steps to minimize and control classroom eating and drinking will facilitate cleaning and both directly and indirectly lead to higher IAQ. And notifying the custodial staff of food and drink spills on the carpet as soon as possible after they occur will speed cleanup and improve IAQ.
At the end of the school day prepare your classroom for cleaning by stacking chairs on desks and picking up school supplies and trash and other debris off the floor. Many teachers already do this, though not all. Those that do get a more thoroughly vacuumed classroom resulting in higher IAQ.
Organize your classroom to better facilitate cleaning. Get rid of excess tables, desks ,and chairs that obstruct the classroom along with personal items such as sofas, stuffed furniture, pillows, throw rugs, and bean bags chairs that can harbor and pass along biological agents. And talk to the custodian that cleans your room about how your classroom setup effects cleaning. The custodian may be able to give you some useful tips on how your classroom can be organized for better cleaning.
Our custodial department has made great advances in carpet cleaning in the past 10 years. We’ve increased the quality of our vacuuming and our methods of removing stains are state of the art. We have the equipment and the knowledge, but at the current custodial staff level (70% of the staffing level in 1994), we just don’t have the time to do as thorough a job of cleaning as is needed .
If however, classroom eating and drinking were eliminated or even more controlled, there would be less spills, and more cleaning time saved dealing with the spills. And if classrooms were relatively unobstructed and the floor clear of personal items, supplies, and trash, custodians wouldn’t have to deal with these obstructions and vacuuming would be more thorough resulting in higher IAQ.
This is by no means a cure all for IAQ problems in schools. Leaky roofs, obsolete HVAC systems, and a whole host of building problems must be addressed and fixed also.
Just how clean do you want your classroom? Whether you know it or not, you show your custodian everyday. When you leave your classroom at the end of the day with chairs down and books and other supplies stacked on the floor and lots of trash and other debris scattered throughout the classroom as well not reporting any food and pop spilled on the carpet, you are telling your custodian that you really don’t care how clean your classroom is. On the other hand if you have your classroom organized well with the chairs on top of desks and other items off the floor and trash and small debris picked up and you have reported any spills, you are showing your custodian that you do care enough about how clean your classroom is by preparing it for a thorough cleaning.
So you see, the degree of Indoor Air Quality in your classroom may largely be determined by you.
For more information on school indoor air quality see the EPA document Indoor Air Quality Tools For Schools and the School Indoor Air Quality Best Practices Manual put out by the Washington State Department of Health.
*School Indoor Air Quality Best Practices Manual, November 2003 by the Office of Environmental Health and Safety of the Washington State Department of Health.