ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) has launched an international initiative to lead the textile services industry to new heights in sustainability and environmental protection with the unveiling of its Clean Green certification program.
The new program recognizes companies that meet TRSA requirements for achieving efficiencies in water and energy conservation and adopting best management practices for reusing, reclaiming and recycling resources.
The certification gives the industry’s business-to-business customers third-party verification that the uniforms, tablecloths, bed sheets, floor mats, towels and other reusable textiles they procure from Clean Green-certified companies are laundered in an environmentally friendly manner, TRSA says.
Textile services companies will pay a per-plant fee to be considered for certification.
“Contracting with a Clean Green laundry is a commitment to sustainability and statement of conscientiousness about natural resources, part of managing a supply chain with maximum environmental protection in mind,” notes Joseph Ricci, TRSA president and CEO.
More business owners and operators are modifying their production technologies, processes and work habits to improve efficiency and conserve supplies. “Clean Green prompts them to consider how their choices of outsourced functions such as laundry affect their total environmental impact,” Ricci observes.
Businesses that opt for work uniform rental service and linen supply from textile services companies—as opposed to assigning staff to wash work clothes at home or using smaller on-premise or commercial laundries for linens—have chosen the superior route for minimizing natural resources depletion, according to TRSA.
Textile services operations with the highest-speed, largest-capacity equipment are most likely to exceed Clean Green standards due to such machinery’s energy and water efficiencies, TRSA says. Because these industrial-scale laundries have hundreds or even thousands of customers, they are large enough to economically deploy the latest technologies for removing pollutants, recovering heat and reusing rinse water, among other resource-saving functions.
Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply, based in Jessup, Pa., is the first launderer in the world to be certified Clean Green.
For more details about the TRSA program that is open to members and non-members, go here.
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