ABC 7 News/ News Channel 8 - We were filmed by ABC 7 News on Tuesday January 8th for a story which aired on January 14th, 2008 at 5:45PM on our green cleaning. Here's the post for both video and print media from both channels (ON THEIR SITE - LOOK FOR "GOING GREEN:CLEANING NATURALLY"):
The results from the different channels below are basically the same with slightly different graphics.
From channel 8:
( http://cfc.news8.net/searchvideos.cfm?k=going+green&x=0&y=0) and
( http://www.news8.net/news/stories/0108/487803.html)
From channel 7:
( http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0108/487803.html)
and ( http://cfc.wjla.com/searchvideos.cfm?k=green&x=0&y=0)
ANGIE'S LIST HONOR ROLL - JUNE 2008
ANGIE'S LIST AWARD FOR ALL OF 2007!!!
February 20, 2008 DC Current Newspapers (Northwest, Georgetown, Dupont, and Foggy Bottom)
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Green’ cleaners use old-fashioned methods to get out the grease
Some of the choices consumers face while navigating
the waters of the current green revolution seem more
abstract than others. Purchasing carbon offsets will
help plant trees — but not in your backyard. Reducing consumption
of red meat will prevent the destruction of rain forest
for grazing lands in — well, somewhere, but not here.
A crop of companies, however, has sprouted to bring
green right into the living rooms of area residents. These
green cleaning outfits eschew the chemical-laden tools of traditional
cleaning services for a battery of cleansers our grandmothers
would have recognized: “Lemon juice, vinegar,
hydrogen peroxide,” listed Mia Gallina, founder of The
Green Mop (www.thegreenmop.com), a green cleaning
company based in Arlington that has grown to 30 full-time
employees and 350 clients in the past five years.
Gallina is waging war not only on the ingredients and products
that she says are harmful to our health and the environment,
but on the very idea of “clean” in the American psyche.
“People tend to associate clean with the smell of Pine-
Sol,” said Gallina. “When we finish cleaning your
home, there’s no smell.”
While Gallina works to shift that “perfect point”
away from chemical cleansers, they know that many clients
first hire a green cleaning company for personal rather than
ideological reasons. Gallina noted that her clients early on
were rarely environmentalists: “A lot of people had asthma or
compromised immune systems.”
But she said, more recently “people
have become more aware” and cite
environmental and health issues.
One such client is Logan Circle
resident Jona Lai, who hired The
Green Mop when she was pregnant
with her first child, Olivia, now 4
months old. “All the products we
used to clean made me nauseated,”
she said of her pregnancy.
Lai and her husband try to make
good environmental decisions, but
concern for the new baby and her
husband’s allergies were a large
part of what pushed them to The
Green Mop. They now find the service
indispensible. “We look at our
budget and say we can give up this
and this, but we can’t give up the
cleaning service!” said Lai.
Gallina has scores of
such stories, but each is also proud
of the improvements that a sustainable
approach has made in employees’
lives. Gallina, whose goal when
she began The Green Mop was to
run “a sustainable company that
pays much more than minimum
wage,” noted that her employees,
many of whom have worked for
traditional cleaning services, don’t
have lung problems like they used to.
Gallina, who began her company
to employ women she met while
volunteering at a Northern Virginia
shelter, now often hires former
employees of other cleaning services.
“They notice a difference within
days,” she said. “They’re less tired
and have fewer headaches.”
Gallina admitted, however,
that quite a bit of “retraining and
rethinking” is in order for those
employees who have been taught
to “spray a chemical and walk
away,” as Gallina described it.
“They’ve been taught that lots of
soap is good and lots of bleach is
good,” said Gallina, whose employees
don’t even use gloves.
Cleaning green, then, isn’t
always easy. Certain cases are a
showdown between a nontoxic
philosophy and a particularly
stubborn bathtub: Gallina, who bemoaned
the stubborn spores, uses a combination
of Borax, baking soda
and vinegar but noted that mold
is easy to avoid. “If you don’t
have granite in it, after a shower,
spray the shower with vinegar
and don’t rinse it out.”
For Gallina, the
approach to cleaning is smart business.
The company was green
from their inception and has
gained recognition from Co-op
America, a consumer advocacy
group. But they work for a cleaner
environment — literally —
because of personal beliefs that
transcend the bottom line. “This is
a personal stand, not a business
move,” said Gallina.
USA Today - November 26, 2007:
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By Lisa Nipp for USA TODAY |
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Arlington, Va.-based service The Green Mop, which uses natural cleansers such as lemons, vinegar
and baking soda, launched in 2007 and has 25 employees and more than 260 clients.
"We are very busy," owner Mia Gallina says. "We were overwhelmed (after Al Gore's 2006
film, An Inconvenient Truth), and from then on, it just grew." | |
Co-op America Business Network (CABN):
Congratulations! Your application to the Co-op America Business Network (CABN) has been approved. You are among CABN’s year 2008 progressive business leaders who are solving today’s tough social and environmental problems.
Your listing will begin appearing tomorrow (12/1/07) at Greenpages.org and in the 2009
National Green Pages (due out late fall 2008).
DC's Home Improvement Magazine in November 2007:
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| Photo courtesy of The Green Mop |
It seems like everyone is doing something to go green these days. Did you know you could do your part to help the environment while keeping your house clean at the same time? You can, thanks to some of the newly developing cleaning companies that are focused on environmental responsibility.
The Green Mop, an earth-friendly cleaning service, run by local gal Mia Gallina, aims to be environmentally and socially responsible. "Social responsibility is as important to us as leaving homes and businesses truly clean," Gallina says.
They'll clean your home or office top to bottom using only eco-friendly and sustainable products, including homemade solutions, such as lemon juice and salt to clean the coffee maker; a mixture of soap, tea tree oil and water for antiseptic spray; and baking soda and essential oil to deodorize carpets.
And they simplify the process that much more by bringing all their own supplies and equipment. Plus, they let you submit payment online. The Green Mop covers Arlington, Alexandria, Springfield, Fairfax, McLean, Bethesda, Kensington, Silver Spring, Chevy Chase and the entire Washington, D.C. metro area. For more information call (202) 425-2538 or visit www.thegreenmop.com.
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