Reinventing The Bucket - Kickstarter Campaign

Sparkling clean windows with less water wastage with the Eco Window Cleaning Unit.

Reinventing The Bucket - Kickstarter Campaign: Sparkling clean windows with less water wastage with the Eco Window Cleaning Unit. Why It’s Better Than a Bucket…  It Saves Water! Using the traditional method of cleaning windows, you ‘dip’ an Applicator into a bucket to absorb the water, and then you can either wring it out with your hand and get soaking wet hands. …Or do what most cleaners do and pull it out of the bucket with all the water on it and slop the water all over the window. Wasting about 250ml of water every time! The Eco Window Cleaning Unit uses less than a teaspoon, as the excess water is removed from the applicator before it gets anywhere near the glass.

The EcoBucket was featured on the blog before here.

It Saves Time! The Eco Window Cleaning Unit can hold 6.5 litres of water. You’ll be able to wash 64 glass panels of between 0.5 and 1 sq metre approximately. That’s enough for a window cleaner to last a whole day without a water change! The specially fitted pump and micro-jets mean that only the right amount of clean water is delivered to the squeegee when you need it. All you have to add is one teaspoonful (a quick squirt) of fairy liquid to break down the grease and that’s perfect!

KickStarter campaign has begun - click here to claim your EcoBucket

About this project

Hello, my name is Clyde Jordan. I’ve been a commercial abseiler for the last 10 years and window cleaning is a very big part of my career. I am based close to London where, like in any large city around the world, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of tall skyscrapers. This is where commercial abseilers play a very big part in keeping the cities looking their best by cleaning the windows of these buildings.

Our abseiling equipment that we use to get ourselves down, or sometimes even up, buildings has been tried and tested over many years and, in my opinion, it has also proven to be the safest way of accessing hard to reach areas, where the conventional way, i.e. ladders, scaffolding and so on, can’t get the job done. Our equipment is constantly being monitored and upgraded to make commercial abseiling safer. However, I had found that the tools we use are not as forthcoming in development as our abseiling equipment, as in using a bucket for cleaning windows while suspended in the air on ropes.

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Don’t get me wrong, a bucket is of great use as I am sure most of us have one or have used one but for commercial abseiling I found it to be really annoying and unconventional. I found that my cleaning tool lanyards always kept getting tangled and when maneuvering on the ropes to get to certain areas, I would almost always finish the day with a soaking leg and a wet sock and when having to do internal cleans where you want to use the least amount of water, it’s just not possible when using a bucket.

Simple process to speed up your window cleaning

I also found that on those not so often cleaning jobs my water constantly got dirty really quickly and I ended cleaning the glass with the dirty water so I spoke to a number of my work colleagues and asked them if they were also having the same problems. Most of them said “yes, but there is no other way of doing it”, which got me thinking “there HAS to be a better way”. I came up with a few ideas and started making homemade prototypes and handed them out to my work colleagues and their colleagues. I got loads of feedback from them and their thoughts on what would make the unit more comfortable and easier to use so I went back and made a lot of changes over a couple of years. I got a prototype that seemed to be good and liked by most abseilers that had a chance to test it. Some of the guys are still using the prototypes now years later!

It really is traditional window cleaning done the smart way.

So where are we now with the project?

During the design stages, the patent process and testing, it was found that the window cleaning unit saves water so the design team (Innovate Product Design) and myself came up with the name ECO WINDOW CLEANING UNIT. A lot of people might think “why worry about the water wasted during window cleaning?” but with millions of windows being cleaned on a daily basis, the amount of water wastage is phenomenal. The Eco Window Cleaning Unit reduces the amount of water wasted during window cleaning by keeping the dirty water separated from the clean water.

For the last two years we have been working with a large reputable manufacturing and managing company and have built up a trusting relationship to ensure that when it comes to production of the Eco Window Cleaning Unit every aspect runs as smooth as possible.    

We have been granted a UK patent and have a pending international patent, and are now happy to announce we are ready to start production of the Eco Window Cleaning Unit. To the people who do window cleaning whilst working at height and those who do indoor window cleaning, I say: Once you try an Eco Window Cleaning Unit, you will find it hard to go back to the bucket method. You’re going to save water, you’re going to save time, and you’re going to make your job a lot more comfortable!

The Eco Window Cleaning Unit - Reinventing The Bucket

The Eco Window Cleaning Unit - reinventing the bucket. Click to enlarge. It is predicted that a  competitive price will be around around £65.00 + VAT. The unit is a single module.

The Eco Window Cleaning Unit  - A Window Cleaning Unit That Saves Water and Cleans Better! We all love admiring the beautiful views through our apartment and house windows but most of us are unaware of the impact which window cleaning has on the environment. With millions of windows being cleaned daily, the amount of water wastage is phenomenal – until now. With the creation of the Eco Window Cleaning Unit, we can all play a small part in reducing the amount of water used during window cleaning, reducing the impact on the environment. The Eco Window Cleaning Unit still uses the traditional window cleaning squeegee and applicator, but with clean water and a fraction of the amount used before. It really is Window cleaning done the smart way and your windows will be even cleaner than ever!

Why It’s Better Than a Bucket…  It Saves Water! Using the traditional method of cleaning windows, you ‘dip’ an Applicator into a bucket to absorb the water, and then you can either wring it out with your hand and get soaking wet hands. …Or do what most cleaners do and pull it out of the bucket with all the water on it and slop the water all over the window. Wasting about 250ml of water every time! The Eco Window Cleaning Unit uses less than a teaspoon, as the excess water is removed from the applicator before it gets anywhere near the glass.

It Saves Time! The Eco Window Cleaning Unit can hold 6.5 litres of water. You’ll be able to wash 64 glass panels of between 0.5 and 1 sq metre approximately. That’s enough for a window cleaner to last a whole day without a water change! The specially fitted pump and micro-jets mean that only the right amount of clean water is delivered to the squeegee when you need it. All you have to add is one teaspoonful (a quick squirt) of fairy liquid to break down the grease and that’s perfect!

It Cleans Better! With just an Applicator and a bucket, you end up cleaning dirty glass with dirty water because after a couple of panes the water WILL get dirty as it removes dirt from the earlier windows. In fact, it’s not just ‘dirt’, it’s called settlement and is comprised of the sand and dust that sticks to the applicator; over time it will damage the glass leaving a permanent haze and you just won’t get a clean finish. The Eco Window Cleaning unit solves this with it’s patented water flushing mechanism.

And It's Eco Friendly: The Eco Window Cleaning Unit changes the way water is being stored and used during window cleaning. The Unit reduces the amount of water wasted during window cleaning by keeping the dirty water separated from the clean water. The Unit is designed for both left and right handed users, and is light and easy to transport from job to job or around office areas and the house without worrying about spilling water. The Eco Window Cleaning Unit is really great for cleaning at heights, whether it’s used by industrial rope access or ladder work. It has lanyards which attach the cleaning applicator and squeegee to the unit and the way in which the cleaning equipment is positioned on the Eco Cleaning Unit prevents the cleaning equipment from getting tangled. And of course, it’s easy to use at ground level too!

Who Can Use The Eco Window Cleaning Unit? The Eco Window Cleaning Unit is perfect for anyone who has to clean windows, but is especially useful for window cleaners working at height, whether on ladders or using rope access. It works great inside an office with furniture and computers because you can just walk around without disturbing the occupants and with no risk to their work.

For janitors working internally on stairs, lifts and communal areas, the same benefits apply; easily transportable and no spillage. It just slips over your shoulder and you’re good to go!

There’s no need to refill the water and the pump, microjets and flushing mechanism mean that you’ll be cleaning windows with less water, clean water and getting a better finish. You can even use it at home, flush it out and store it in the cupboard easily. This really is window cleaning for the 21st Century.

About the inventor: Clyde Jordan has been a commercial abseiler for the last 10 years; these are the guys you see abseiling down the sides of tall buildings doing whatever work they have been contracted for. Commercial abseilers have to be multi-disciplined by the nature of their work and may be called upon to repair masonry and brickwork, welding, painting, installing glass panels and more, but window cleaning is a big part of the work as there really isn’t a more practical solution, particularly nowadays as building shapes and sizes are becoming more adventurous! Clyde became acutely aware of the problems facing the “rope access” technicians when it came to window cleaning, and he set out to to solve the problems.

• A standard bucket isn’t made for working at height
• It uses a lot of water
• The water gets dirty, so you end up cleaning glass with dirty water
• The equipment (applicator and squeegee) are always getting tangled up
• It’s just plain uncomfortable

Clyde decided there was a better way of doing it. From initial idea, home-made designs, concepts and prototype testing has taken 7 years.

Clyde Jordan at work in London, with 30 St Mary Axe behind aka "the Gherkin."

The Story Behind The Eco Window Cleaning Unit: I made the first prototype by hand, making my own holster, using bottles and copper tubes to see what worked and through relentless testing, I found what worked…but it was too bulky so I needed to scale it down. Once I found one that I was confident in, I sent it off to a design company who came up with some further enhancements. This company helped me through the patent process and they made the first prototype. We had to change the whole design before coming up with the current system; for instance, one of the things we’d not considered in the early stage was the ease of use whether someone was right or left handed. The final design addressed this.We still needed a few things tweaked but it gave us enough to get a price for manufacturing in bulk. The manufacturers suggested some more refinements with their experience of tooling, manufacturing and shipping and we got another prototype made. 

The whole process including prototypes, design, patent attorneys, has taken 7 years. I’ve even had to buy products so that I can use different components. For example, I bought a hoover for £80 just to experiment with a spring inside! There are so many things I bought just to get stripped down parts because I had to get a working prototype for myself before I could even look at using a professional design company. I tested it myself on a window cleaning round initially and then a few of my friends working in rope access caught up with what I was using and asked if they could try it so I made a few for them.

They came back with great feedback such as “This isn’t quite balanced” or “You’ve got a problem with this not sitting right” so I was able to change it and give it back to them, tweaked to their requirements. In fact, a few of them are still using them a year later! The best story I have is their use on the Shard in London. I’d been working offshore and I was asked to help clean the glass panels on the Shard They had problems cleaning the windows on The Shard because it was a new building and all the glass had been kept in the yard so it was pretty dirty when it was installed. The way the building is constructed, it was only possible to clean one panel at a time, and with a long transfer time between panels including changing water, one guy managed 3-4 daily, which equated to £30-40 – not a lot of window cleaning income. Then there was the problem of guys dropping their tools because the applicator and the squeegee were getting tangled.

So I spoke to the man who was in charge of the contract, and I showed him what the unit does and he asked me for some right there! I made 15 units and sold them to him and it improved the job so much that he actually won the window cleaning contract because he included details of the unit in his risk assessment. The clients were blown away by the safety aspects as you can imagine from a Health and Safety perspective, objects falling from a building can have dramatic consequences. From a efficiency point of view, the amount of window panels cleaned daily per man went up from 3 to 4 to 20! That’s a massive timesaver because there was no need to stop and change the water.

I truly believe the Unit can transform the working practices and livelihoods of those window cleaning at height.

Clyde Jordan

Inventor and Founder

Sustainable Detergents - One Standard For Europe

A brand new standard has been developed by Europe’s leading producers of sustainable detergents, called the Greenway Standard.

Sustainable detergents - one standard for all: A brand new standard has been developed by Europe’s leading producers of sustainable detergents, called the Greenway Standard. The focus is on economical, ecological and social issues, all at the same time. This is a significant challenge, explains Peter Malaise, consultant on sustainable development issues, writing exclusively for ECJ.

Aren’t all detergents sustainable? Unfortunately not – but as a matter of fact it depends on what your definition of ‘sustainable’ is. ‘Sustainable’ is not the same as ‘biodegradable’; and only the smaller part of most detergent formulations - the surfactants - must legally be biodegradable. Surfactants make up between three and 20 per cent of a detergent formula, depending on the type of product, leaving between 80 and 97 per cent unaccounted for.

Besides, the fact that part of a detergent is biodegradable doesn’t say anything about its aquatic toxicity, or about the stable metabolites it might generate. Nor does it make clear if the carbon based raw materials used were from fossil or from renewable sources and if the transformation technology used ‘green’ chemistry principles and was keen on energy and waste. Uhhh...?

Yes, the detergent business is all too often clear as mud. Detergents are a very complex type of commodity, which we use on a daily basis - mostly without much thought or afterthought - and about which we don’t know too much, even when we’re professional users. It is the obvious tool which does the dirty job and that’s it.

It was in the early 1960s that detergents first came under official scrutiny. For a good reason: the foam they generated built up in and around the river and canal locks, hampered ship traffic and even caused people to die by suffocation or drowning. In the wake of those events came Europe-wide legislation on the biodegradability of their main components, the surfactants. These ‘surface active’ ingredients are the workhorses of detergents, they lower the surface tension and dramatically improve the water’s own cleaning effect.

Impact of surfactants

Unfortunately surfactants also dramatically increase the impacts of detergents on our natural environment and our health. The compulsory biodegradability made the problem disappear visually (no foam anymore), and the waste water purification plants that spread over Europe some decades ago reduced the global impact of detergents to some extent. But the substantial growth in the use of detergents overruled this by far.

Today there is hardly any market segment that does not use them for one application or another. Pesticides and insecticides contain them for better spreading and penetration of the plant substance; in medicine, they improve the quick absorption into our system - just as a few examples.

Ingredients unavailable

From the 1980s onwards, in the wake of alternatives for chemical agriculture, food additives, cosmetics and the like, the first offers for another type of detergents came into the market. It was a difficult start: the conventional detergents had continued to walk down performance lane and were often complete overkill, whereas their (mainly unregulated) environmental and health impact was rocketing.

Sustainable ingredients were rarely available and when they were they were not able to generate an efficiency comparable to the heavyweight, but unsustainable chemistry of the conventional products. It took more than 20 years before sustainable detergent producers had a reasonable choice of ingredients that were sustainable as well as satisfactory in terms of performance.

In 1993 the EU set up an ecolabel initiative for detergents. Until 2003 it was hardly noticed and there were next to no products aiming for it, as many of the leading organisations in the sustainability realm judged the criteria too weak and too permissive. As a matter of fact the main aim of the EU label was – in its own words – to certify detergents “that were less of a burden to the environment” and secondly, to have as many of them as possible. In that perspective the requirements for such a label should not be too explicit.

Several certification organisations for organic produce – amongst them ICEA in Italy, the Soil Association in the UK and Ecocert in France – each proposed their own, stricter standard.  The difficulty was, and continues to be, the technical and environmental complexity of detergents and the insight that is needed to create a sustainable and efficient alternative. It’s not because you can develop an excellent set of certification criteria for organic produce that you can deliver something similar for detergents (and the other way round, of course).

Most producers of sustainable detergents – the ones that mainly or exclusively produce sustainable alternatives, that is - were dissatisfied with each and every label or certification around: none of them encompassed the full set of values they were operating with.

Concept drafted

In the winter of 2011 French, Italian and Belgian producers who had previously met privately started talking to each other and to some external experts. The outline of a mutual concept was drafted and the development began. In the winter of 2012 a non-profit association was created: The Greenway to Life, with a registered office in Paris and a technical office in Pianiga, Italy. In February 2013 the new Greenway Standard was presented during a press conference at the Biofach in Nürnberg, the worldwide most important organic fair.

The foundations of the Greenway Standard are the principles of sustainable development. That means a focus on economical, ecological and social issues at the same time, which is quite a challenge.

For the practical implementation two tools have been created:

• A standard in text format of about 60 pages, which describes in detail all the requirements to which a candidate detergent has to respond and the ethical, ecological, social or technical motivation behind the requirements. This standard gives full detail of test protocols and the thresholds to be respected, the standard product formulae to test against and the classifications that can be obtained. There is also a marked attention for terminology in the communication

• An online calculation module accessible for members through a VPN connection. The module consists of a huge detergent ingredients database with an evaluation and classification of each ingredient. All chemical, biochemical, biological and safety data which are available today are taken in account and are used in the calculation by the database engine. Any formula can be introduced and immediately evaluated on its eligibility for labelling. When a negative outcome occurs, the applicant gets indications about the underlying reasons.

Before engaging in a certification trajectory the applicant can himself check, correct and fine-tune whatever issue that might come up. Besides this evaluation process he needs to introduce data from an external lab on the aquatic toxicity and the performance of the submitted formula.

Once he gets a ‘yes’ from the calculation module, the dedicated external experts of Greenway recheck the submitted formula on its overall conformity with the Greenway Standard. When they agree, the applicant can indicate an external auditor of his choice to run an audit, both theoretical and in his premises. After a positive outcome, the Greenway label will be granted to the detergent.

It’s important to stress that all criteria are based on open, scientifically sound standards and all testing on similarly open protocols, such as used by the scientific community worldwide and by most detergent producers. That guarantees the highest level of compliance with market standards, a criticism which is often uttered against ‘green’ labelling

Differences and merits

There are many ecolabels from a variety of sources on the market today, a quick internet search can easily feature up to 400 ‘green’ or supposedly ‘green’ labels. Nevertheless the Greenway Standard can make a difference:

• The Greenway non-profit association is the first multi-stakeholder initiative on sustainable detergents where producers, experts, and representatives from distributors and professional and private consumers will cooperate

• As an independent civil initiative, Greenway is not tainted by political or commercial influences and its members are estimated by many NGO’s

• Sustainable development is one pillar of the label, not an add-on, and an inextricable part of the global approach

• Product performance is the other pillar of the label and safeguards that labelled products are not just ‘green’, but also efficient detergents

• The product criteria were set up by professionals from the international sustainable detergent market segment, producers and experts alike

• The Greenway Standard is complying with actual scientific and technical knowledge and will be constantly updated by the dedicated experts

• The audits are done by qualified certification bodies, independent of Greenway.

There has been a very positive reaction from several certification bodies throughout Europe: they acclaim the high technical quality and the professionalism of the criteria, as well as the care for transparency and objectivity in the approach.

Further developments are to be expected soon and can be followed here.

Chemical Free Cleaning Trending In Commercial Sector

"Chemical-free" cleaning is something of a trend in the commercial sector, but expense and effectiveness doubts mean it's not catching on in homes.

'Chemical-free' cleaning is trending in the commercial sector (Debbi McCullough is an independent writer): Will greener cleaning methods, such as salt-based split stream water technology, replace conventional powders and bleaches?

Randy Reed, deputy assistant director of housekeeping at North Carolina State University, North Carolina’s largest campus, often fretted about the effects of chemicals on the 300 housekeepers as they cleaned. While nobody was ever seriously injured, he fielded several reports of rashes, occasional respiratory problems and headaches, possibly caused by exposure to the harsh smells the cleaners omitted.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a government agency, warns of this in its public safety warnings (pdf). Cleaning chemicals, OSHA states, can cause dangerous gases causing headaches, dizziness, wheezing, even lung damage. With this in mind, two years ago, Reed replaced traditional industrial cleaners such as Diversey Glance and Comet Cleaner with Orbio SC 5000 split stream water technology to clean floors, surfaces, even urinals.

This new system uses a salt-based, chemical-free process, where water passes through the system giving it an electrical charge. The solution cleans and sanitizes surfaces leaving it 99% germ free, Reed explains. “On our first trial our hygiene meter monitored the bacteria count on a urinal and found the technology removed as many germs as a regular sanitizer."

Orbio SC 5000 uses a salt-based process, where water passes through the system giving it an electrical charge.

NC State is part of a larger trend in which universities, retailers, sports facilities and large corporations are not just cleaning with greener chemicals, but without chemicals at all.

Companies including Coca-Cola Enterprises in the Netherlands; ISS, one of the world’s largest commercial facilities services providers; and Chapman University, (pdf) one of California’s oldest private universities, have made the switch. Examples include sanitizing facilities with technologies such as steam vapor systems, spray and vac systems using pressurized water to remove and loosen soils along with ozonated and electrolyzed systems using electricity to turn water into a cleaning agent. The use of microfiber cloths and mops, which require only water to remove germs, grime and bacteria also make up the trend.

While industry numbers don’t yet exist, Stephen Ashkin, executive director of The Green Cleaning Network, a non-profit working with corporations to green the cleaning industry, estimates that, based on his client research and surveys, 30% to 50% of corporations and institutions across the US, now clean their facilities with eco-friendly chemical cleaners or cleaners without chemicals at all.

“The professional cleaning industry has changed,” he says. “The newer trend experts are seeing is cleaning without chemicals.” Ashkin believes cleaning products minimizing chemicals will never replace floor finishes, heavy-duty cleaning chemicals or graffiti removers, but this is a “tool in the toolbox for creating a healthy and clean environment while leaving a minimal footprint.”

Defining Chemical-Free Cleaning

The trend is so new that even the description of these products is controversial; while some call them chemical-free, others say eco-friendly. Ashkin rejects the term “chemical-free” cleaning because no cleaning product or device completely avoids chemicals.

“Chemical-free cleaning is a marketing term versus a technical term,” he says. Case in point is companies offering chemical-free cleaning products, such as Tennant, maker of the Orbio systems, which use their own technologies to define "chemical-free."

OSHA defines green cleaning as products certified by independent organizations as safe to use and less harmful to your health and environment than conventional alternatives such as bleach and ammonia.

Wherever the definition lies, all this means good business for the big players. In April, Tennant posted quarterly results showing growth year-on-year. Other brands including Tursano, maker of the popular Lotus Pro device (similar to the split stream water technology), and the larger company Ecolab also reported positive first-quarter earnings. Makers of chemical free antibacterial microfiber cloths have good customer following as well. Norway-based Norwex, now in multiple markets including Canada, Australia and the US, sells microfiber towels and cloths, microfiber scarf clips for cleaning tablets, glasses and jewellery (instead of toxic sprays and wipes) and dry polyester floor pads for mopping.

But much of this market is in the commercial sector. Based on his client work, Ashkin estimates that residential cleaning remains only around 1-5% of the core eco-friendly and chemical-free cleaning market, probably because the conversion payback is higher for large corporations. Purchasing a chemical-free cleaning device for a commercial space can cost up to $5,000, a worthwhile investment, if used daily. A Lotus Pro split stream water technology cleaning device for your home averages $150 retail, too much for a parent worried about putting food on the table, Ashkin adds. Commercial facilities also have employees to compare costs, and review and analyze the cleaning products they buy, which the household consumer often lacks.

Homemade Chemical Free Cleaning

Another growing trend is Americans making their own cleaning products, with limited chemicals. Senior account supervisor at MMI Public Relations in North Carolina, Jennifer Fair ditched Clorox and other harsh cleaners for recipes she found on Pinterest such as pairing vinegar with baking soda. The vinegar dish soap concoction gets her shower super clean, she says. Other recipes suggest using baking soda, sprayed with water, to clean ovens.

This interest is valid given the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit group, has found through their Hall of Shame (pdf) study that 438 of 2,000 assessed cleaning products contain at least one chemical that the non-profit group Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics identifies as an asthmagen.

The worst offenders, the study claims, were those labelled as “green cleaners” such as the Simple Green Concentrated All-Purpose Cleaner (labelled as non-toxic and biodegradable) when one of its ingredients is 2-butoxyethanol, a solvent which can cause red blood cell damage and eye irritation. EWG also cites several studies showing pregnant women are more at risk for birth defects when exposed frequently to cleaning chemicals, especially window cleaner and air deodorizer sprays.

Effectiveness of greener cleaning products

Ashkin doesn’t believe home cleaning product recipes work well. “We have a romanticized view that because we can eat it, it’s good for you,” he says.

And can we say split stream chemical-free technologies clean as well as eco-friendly chemicals? Tennant doesn't know the answer to this question, and Ashkin says it’s too early to know. However, companies are evaluating the technologies, comparing the impact to chemicals and other devices along with the wattage. He suspects the environmental benefits of chemical-free cleaning devices and technology will outshine chemical cleaners.

“Conventional cleaning requires extracting the raw materials, turning these into ingredients, shipping to a formulator who mixes everything into an effective cleaning product before putting the chemicals into packaging (with their own environmental impacts) and finally shipping to the end user. Through green cleaning those impacts go away.”

Trending Bird Safety Glass Becoming Mandatory

This image provided by the American Bird Conservancy shows the new Visitors Center at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, which was designed with birds in mind. The special, striped pattern incorporated into the glass looks elegant, but also provides a signal to birds that a barrier exists.

Some cities adopting bird-friendly building rules (OAKLAND, Calif.)  – Birds and buildings can be a fatal combination. The American Bird Conservancy cites studies estimating that hundreds of millions of birds die each year as a result of colliding with walls and windows. But a movement to make skies a little friendlier is taking flight; some cities and other governments across the country are adopting bird-safety building guidelines on a mandatory or voluntary basis.

One of the latest cities to incorporate bird safety into housing regulations is Oakland, where officials this year revised guidelines originally approved in 2008 to make them more effective. Neighboring San Francisco adopted bird-friendly requirements in 2011, working with the American Bird Conservancy and Golden Gate Audubon Society, and the state of Minnesota also has bird-friendly design requirements, modeled after a LEED (Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design) bird collision reduction program. The Minnesota requirements are part of a sustainability program that applies to projects with any state funding.

The state of California includes voluntary bird-friendly measures as an appendix to its green building code, known as CALgreen. What exactly do bird-safety regulations entail? A big issue is glass. Just as many a human has taken a nasty smack walking into a clear glass door, birds often come to grief when confronted with transparent picture windows or glass-sided buildings. Unlike humans, birds don’t pick up on architectural cues; they don’t see a window frame and realize it implies a window.

But that doesn’t mean that bird-friendly buildings have to be “windowless warehouses,” says Christine Sheppard, bird collisions campaign manager at the American Bird Conservancy. Glazing treatments, such as making glass opaque or using etching to make it more noticeable,can deter collisions. And research is being conducted into the efficacy of glass patterned with vertical or horizontal lines. “We’ve actually done quite a bit of this sort of testing, building on the work of Dr. Dan Klem at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania and Martin Roessler in Austria,” says Sheppard. “We know that there are highly effective patterns that cover less than 10 per cent of the glass surface. We know the basic dimensions of spaces birds won’t try to fly through, but we still need to determine the minimum size of the elements that create the spaces — lines can be broken up, patterns can be made of dots, lines don’t have to be straight, etc.”

From a design perspective, incorporating bird safety can be challenging, says Ryan Hughes, project manager at Lundberg Design in San Francisco. Clients want views, especially in a city like San Francisco blessed with hills overlooking a big, blue bay. And glass provides those views, whether that’s a floor-to-ceiling wall or a barrier around the edge of a terrace.

This publicity photo provided by American Bird Conservancy shows a bird-friendly design at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A movement to make skies a little friendlier is taking flight; some cities and other governments across the country are adopting bird-safety building guidelines on a mandatory or voluntary basis.

Still, new glass products, including the type with minimal lines, can be part of an acceptable compromise. And sometimes, what’s good for humans is also good for birds: Lundberg designed glass bus shelters for the city of San Francisco that included a subtle pattern on the glass — called SF fog because it is denser at the bottom and dissipates at the top — to keep people from walking into the walls. Hughes said he later heard from bird safety officials that the pattern is effective at warding off birds, too.

The problem of bird collision isn’t limited to public structures or skyscrapers. “The estimate is that pretty much any home probably kills between one and 10 birds a year,” says Sheppard, author of the bird conservancy’s “Bird-Friendly Design.”(That figure is based on work by Klem, as well as by Scott Loss at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.) Making your home a more bird-friendly place can be as simple as sticking Post-It notes on the windows during high danger times, such as spring or fall bird migrations. Other relatively simple options that benefit birds and humans are window screens or shutters.

Oakland’s bird safety measures are part of the building permit process and apply to all construction projects that include glass as part of a building’s exterior. They also apply to projects that meet one of several criteria, including being next to places where birds are likely to congregate, such as a large body of water or a recreation area. Scott Miller, Oakland’s zoning manager, says he hasn’t heard many complaints from developers. The rules, he says, are “really quite reasonable. They’re not restricting development in such a way that would be objectionable. They’re just providing measures that make buildings friendlier to birds.”

Measures include bird-friendly glazing treatments; avoiding the use of mirrors in landscape design; and avoiding putting things that attract birds near glass. Other bird-friendly practices include turning off more lights at night, since lit windows can attract night-flying birds. Minimum-intensity white strobe lighting with a three-second flash is better than solid red or rotating lights, which attract birds. Taking steps to keep birds safe is more than just kindness, says Sheppard. Birds have an ecological impact dispersing seeds and eating harmful insects. “People should care about birds,” says Sheppard, “because we need birds.”

The pigeon crashed in to a kitchen pane in Dunblane, Stirling, leaving an outline that showed the pigeons head, torso and outspread wings. The imprint left then was said to be from the animal’s protective ‘powder down’ substance designed to preserve its feathers.

Bird Strike: deaths caused by collisions with buildings severely dent populations: Ben Whitford reveals why numerous birds fall dead and injured from the skies over urban areas each year, and asks what can be done to prevent this ongoing avian tragedy. On a brisk May morning in 2001, countless dying birds fell like rain from the grey Toronto sky. In the east of the city, outside a hulking 18-storey office complex called Consilium Place, workers on cigarette breaks watched in horror as tiny feathered bodies thudded onto the pavement, fell into their laps, and crashed onto the picnic tables where they had laid out their coffee and morning snacks.

While the office workers sought shelter, a bird enthusiast named Michael Mesure called for backup. As founder of the Fatal Light Awareness Program, or FLAP, Mesure runs a team of volunteers who patrol Toronto in search of birds that have stunned themselves — or worse — by flying into one of the city’s many mirrored-glass skyscrapers. Some mornings Mesure’s team doesn’t find many birds: perhaps just one, or two, or twenty.

In the space of six hours on that May morning, though, Mesure and a dozen or so volunteers found at least 500 birds. Ruby-throated hummingbirds, dark-eyed juncos, white-throated sparrows and Nashville warblers were carefully collected: the tiny corpses stored in plastic bags, the injured survivors placed gently in paper sacks for treatment and subsequent release. And still the birds kept falling. “It was literally hailing birds,” Mesure says. “It was just a real sobering moment for us.”

On a smaller scale, experts say, such scenes are repeated daily across North America as birds, unable to distinguish between blue sky and what Vladimir Nabokov poetically called “the false azure in the windowpane”, careen into windows at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. The resulting brain damage is thought to kill about 60% of birds on impact, with many of the remainder left nursing chipped beaks or internal injuries that subsequently prove fatal.

In all, it’s estimated that the Toronto skyline accounts for about 1 million bird deaths a year — and even that is just a drop in the bucket. It’s hard to put a precise number on collision-related mortalities, but researcher Scott Loss of the Smithsonian Institute is preparing to publish new research that, based on a sophisticated analysis of 23 previous studies, estimates that between 400 million and 1 billion birds die from window impacts each year in the U.S. alone.

That eye-popping number suggests that window impacts are putting a serious dent in the North American bird population. There are thought to be around 10 to 20 billion birds in the U.S., Loss says, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that up to 10% of the entire U.S. bird population dies, year-in, year-out, due to building collisions.

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Window Cleaning News

A window washer washes a window in downtown Wausau. A new study found Wausau had the highest credit score of the largest American cities.

Mumbai Financial Hub Needs Homes to Meet Demand From Bankers: A window cleaner works on a building in the Bandra Kurla Complex of Mumbai. Demand for housing inside the 370-hectare (914-acres) development is rising as employees seek to cut commuting times of two hours or more in the city of 18 million people that spreads across 440 square kilometers (170 square miles).

Ken leaves his brain to scientists: A Bideford man who was committed to being an organ donor has donated his brain to the Alzheimer’s Society. Ken Lydon died last month at the age of 81, having spent the last two years of his life at the Sandhurst Residential Home in Bideford. His long-time partner Ruth Nugent told the Gazette: “Ken had no family of his own, having been brought up in an orphanage in Kent. We had been together for 44 years and I miss him so much, even though it seemed he died long ago. He knew me right to the end. If Ken’s story is publicised, maybe more donors will come forward to help in the prevention of this terrible disease or even in finding a cure. I feel that too little is being done and I am proud and pleased that he has been able to help in some small way.” Mr Lydon had spent much of his life in Kent, moving to Bideford seven years ago. His varied career included as a window cleaner and a wedding photographer. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease 10 years ago, but was generally fit and well until earlier this summer, when he was found to have an aggressive malignant tumour. He was well known locally at the Barnstaple and Torrington memory cafes.

Interserve, the international support services and construction group, has signed a three-year cleaning services contract, worth over £2 million with Midlands Co-operative Society – the UK’s largest independent retailer. Interserve will provide daily office and retail cleaning to their premises ranging from 690 to 34,900 sq ft. The contract will also include window cleaning, jet washing and floor strip and seals in all 86 Co-operative stores across the Midlands region. Tony Sanders, Managing Director - Commercial at Interserve commented, “We are committed to becoming the trusted partner to companies across the UK, so are looking forward to contributing towards the co-operative society’s ethos. One practical example of this will be the use of green cleaning processes.

MYTH: Eco-friendly products are more expensive. FACT: They can cut water and energy use by 20%, less solution means a reduction in product costs and their effectiveness means lowered labour costs Green is the new black in the FM world, with companies striving to implement environmentally friendly initiatives across the board. From microfiber technologies to molecular cleaning products, companies are starting to demonstrate an awareness of how they can cut down on their carbon footprint. Alkalis, acids and detergents are the most commonly found chemicals in cleaning products. But what harm do they actually cause? One of the biggest threats is that of the ecosystem, caused by the pouring of chemical based cleaners down the drain or toilet. The chemicals end up in treatment plants where they are further treated with chemicals to try and make them cleaner.

Cardigan businessman becomes entrepreneur champion: A Cardigan businessman has been selected as one of six people from across Wales to become an Entrepreneurship Champion to the Welsh Government. Ben Giles, of Ultima Cleaning has joined the team set up by business minister Edwina Hart. Ben, who left school at 15 to start a window-cleaning round, has since set up multiple successful and highly innovative businesses. He still retains his original window cleaning business, while he now also employs 70 people in his cleaning and training businesses. He and the rest of the Champions team will be providing guidance on entrepreneurship policy to the Welsh Government.

Edwina Hart said: “Entrepreneurs are essential for developing a strong economy, building companies and helping to spread prosperity and create jobs. “We want to encourage and support entrepreneurs in Wales and the Champions will advise on what support is needed to help start-up and small firms with real potential to thrive and grow and how the Welsh Government can embed an entrepreneurial culture in Wales. “I am grateful for the enthusiastic support of these individuals who have built up extremely successful businesses and are willing to give their time and energy to drive this important section of the economy forward.”

The Champions will form a voluntary network, meeting three times a year and speaking at several key events in Wales to promote entrepreneurship and inspire others to consider the entrepreneurship path into business. They were selected through an open procurement process via Sell2Wales and press advertisements that attracted 48 potential candidates.

Winners of our Good Neighbour Award hailed: They are the unsung heroes of their street who make the community proud. And this year competition was so fierce, the gong went to a whole street ... Kearsley Close in Seaton Delaval. Hot on the street’s heels were the two runners-up Brenda Copeland, of Ashvale Avenue, Kibblesworth, Gateshead, and Ray and Joan Hardcastle of Sanders Gardens, Birtley, Gateshead, who also take home a trophy and £250 each. Brenda, 81, is recovering from a hip replacement but is described as an “inspiration” by Tina Palmer, who nominated her for the award. The great gran pulls out wheelie bins, is a friend to her neighbours and always makes the window cleaners a cuppa and a sandwich.

Reaction to Karma’s nightclub closure has been mixed in the business community, with some traders celebrating while others say it is the final death knell for Chippenham town centre. Jane Baker, who owns The Flower Shop, opposite Karma, said she regularly comes in on Friday morning to find urine and vomit on her doorstep and has had her windows smashed on numerous occasions. She said: “I’m very pleased that it has closed. “There had been a few weeks recently where we had no trouble and I did think that maybe things had changed and improved. “But then I came in to work on the Friday before last and there was sick all across my front windows. “It is disgusting and I felt awful as my window cleaner was trying to clean it off.

Scariest Ways To Earn A Living: The Window Washer - Janitorial services may have more than their fair share of negative aspects. There's not much fun in emptying stinky trash cans, but you don't think of a janitor as a big risk-taker. That is, until you see the guy who has to wash the windows on the skyscraper or the surfaces of other enormous structures. From Big Ben to the Space Needle to Mount Rushmore, men and women have braved the extreme height to do a little scrubbing. The workers are either secured by harnesses and straps, on scaffolding or both. Accidents happen, and often those accidents are fatal. Window washers do earn some of the highest salaries in janitorial services, around $50,000 a year with good medical coverage for occupational accidents. It's a good paycheck, but is it worth it? It depends on how much you like a clean window.

When you walk into a darkened room, usually you flip on the lights or open the shades. But soon you could opt instead to let the sunshine in by hitting a switch to send an electrical current coursing through your windows. Smart window technology, thermally insulating fenestration that changes color at the flip of a switch, is the next wave in windows. Smart glass’ most visible application right now is in the auto-dimming rearview mirrors in high-end cars. But the technology is poised to move out of the Mercedes and into homes and businesses, where it could potentially save one-eighth of all the energy used by buildings in the U.S. if it replaced all the conventional windows in the country, according to researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo. That’s about 5 percent of the nation’s entire energy budget.

Smart, or dynamic, window technology can turn glass from transparent to translucent (usually blue or blue-gray in color) and back again when it is briefly exposed to low voltage that is fed to it via a simple circuit to the building current, thus controlling the transmission of visible and near-infrared light. The technology is not new; color-changing glass has been available for more than two decades. But it has always been a premium product that, at $50 to $100 per square foot, has been too costly for most commercial and residential construction projects.

The Ankeny City Council, Iowa, voted to remove planned security upgrades for its council chambers from a remodeling plan during a meeting on Monday. The original plan called for more than $200,000 to be spent on security and technology upgrades to the City Council chamber as well as other remodeling that officials said was needed at City Hall. The council chose to remove the security and technology changes from the proposal, some two-thirds of the cost of the plan, and just moved forward with exterior building upgrades and converting one large office into two smaller offices. City officials said the security and technology changes may be reconsidered at some point in the future, but were unsure when those proposed changes might come up again for consideration. Plans call for the large picture window to shrink in size and be reinforced with bulletproof glass. The desk where the City Council sits will be longer and have some bulletproof material built into it, and the doors to the council chambers will be changed. "I don't know. What are they scared of? Are they really scared of the people? What are they doing? I don't think it is necessary," said resident Tony Smith.

We here at the alligatorSports Brand Picks Column appreciate fine art. Elitists place sportswriters at the bottom of the creative totem pole, but trust us: We’re cultured. Nobody enjoys the spots and squiggles of abstract paintings, the soundtracks and subtitles of foreign films, the beeps and boops of jazz music more than us. And we can spot a phony from a mile away. That’s why we are glad to see the end of “Crossing Paths” — or, as it is better known in the artistic community, “That super sucky program for which UF paid like $40,000 to put creepy statues everywhere.” Good riddance, scary window washer outside Einstein Bros. Bagels.

Window cleaners 'to have best view of Olympic site' - Window cleaners who are deployed to two high rise buildings in Ilford will have some of the best views of London's Olympic sites. Sheffield-based manufacturer Rostek-UK has installed two monorails and two cradles on the towers at Pioneer Point at a cost of £200,000. The systems have been designed to accommodate window cleaners on the 91 and 113-metre-high properties. Those with a head for heights have been told by the designers that they will have one of the finest vantage points for viewing famous landmarks such as Canary Wharf, as well as the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

Rostek-UK was given the contract by London and Regent Construction, with the brief of enabling cleaning companies to reach all external parts of the towers. Sales and marketing director at the Yorkshire enterprise John Hepworth said the venture has helped raise the firm's profile. "[It's] great to be recommended in the first place and then to hear such fabulous comments on completion of the project," he remarked. Cleaning specialists could be required to spruce up the houses of London residents ahead of the 2012 Olympics, as many will rent out their abodes to visitors, the Ealing Gazette reported.

Window-cleaning robot launched in Taiwan: A window-cleaning robot that won a gold medal at the 2010 iENA Nuremberg International Trade Fair was launched in Taiwan Thursday. Dubbed the "Winbot," the robot is a creation of local inventor Chao Chih-mo. It uses magnets to attach to windows up to 10 mm thick. K.E. & Kingstone Co. and Hobot Technology, which introduced the product, expect to cash in on yearend promotions in major department stores, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported. The robot is priced at under NT$10,000 (US$330), and can operate at least five times more quickly that human window cleaners, the company said. It is also able to detect the cleaning area on its own using automatic navigation technology and infrared sensors, the company added.

SMALL BIZ DISCUSSES BURDENSOME FEDERAL REGS: Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations, a coalition created by the National Federation of Independent Business, holds a news conference to talk about federal regulations the group says stifle small business growth in Florida. NFIB Florida Executive Director Bill Herrle and two small business owners, Jay Lunt, president of Folkers Window Company in Pensacola, and Don Curtis, president of The Forestry Company in Perry, will speak. (Wednesday, 1:30 p.m., Florida Press Center, 336 E. College Ave., Tallahassee.)

ALLEN PARK — The City Council meeting Sept. 27 lasted close to five hours as the council discussed and adopted several resolutions. An application from Michael Alt to solicit window cleaning services door to door was approved 6-0.

Tilehurst man evades jail despite using 'outrageous violence' - A Tilehurst man avoided a jail term despite a “disgraceful display of outrageous violence” during a drunken street brawl. James Buckthorpe, of Lyndhurst Road, was given a 30-week suspended sentence at Reading Crown Court after admitting assault occasioning actual bodily harm (ABH) and threatening violence. The 38-year-old was spared immediate imprisonment because of his previous good character and early guilty plea but he will have to carry out 100 hours’ unpaid work. The court heard on Friday how Buckthorpe had attacked Colin Stevens in St Mary’s Butts in the early hours of Sunday, February 6. The court heard Buckthorpe, a window cleaner, had last been convicted of a violent offence in 1996 and this had been linked with alcohol.

Drink-driving ban for ex-pro Bullock: A former professional footballer from Worcester has been banned from the roads for drink-driving without insurance or an MOT certificate. Darren Bullock commanded more than £650,000 in transfer fees during the 1990s and enjoyed successful spells at Huddersfield Town, Swindon Town and Bury. The 42-year-old, of Lilac Avenue, Tolladine, finished his professional playing career at Worcester City in 2002 and has since represented local sides Archdales 73 and AFC Heenans. Last season Bullock was assistant manager at Malvern Town, where he began his playing career. Appearing at Worcester Magistrates Court yesterday, Bullock pleaded guilty to drink-driving, driving with no insurance and no MoT.

Bullock, who now works as a self-employed window cleaner, said he had bought the S-reg Vauxhall Vectra three months ago and had not been driving it because he didn’t have enough money to pay for insurance. For drink-driving, Bullock was disqualified for 18 months and fined £180. He was offered the drink-driving course which, if he completes it by October 2012, will reduce the ban by four months. For having no insurance Bullock was fined £180 but no separate penalty was imposed for the car not having an MoT certificate. He was also ordered to pay £85 costs and £15 victim surcharge. Bullock offered to pay the fines at £30 a week.

Vets happy for a hand up at Stand Down in Dixon: Up went the tents and in came the vets, as hundreds of former military personnel from all branches and eras flocked to the Dixon May Fair grounds on Tuesday for the 10th annual North Bay Stand Down. During the three-day event that saw rows of tents pop up across the grounds, veterans were encouraged to take advantage of the many services that range from haircuts and showers to counseling sessions and legal consultation -- all aimed at helping them get back on their feet. Also experiencing the Stand Down for the first time was Santa Rosa resident John Capps.

According to Capps, he came to the event in order to have a better idea about what is available to veterans in terms of benefits. The former Army sergeant spent 12 years in the military before being discharged in 1998, but was virtually unaware of any of his veteran benefits until 2007. "So far I'm finding that the Stand Down is a pretty big deal because pretty much everything's here," he said. "So it's pretty much so far, so good."

Since leaving the military, Capps took over the window washing business of his father -- also a veteran. "A lot of veterans ... believe that nobody's really there to help them out, but people just need to look, they need to get busy," he said. "I'm finding you have to look very hard to see something like this." Where once veterans were left feeling "abandoned" with the "You're done. Have a nice day. Thanks for the memories." mentality once they leave the military, Capps said he has seen a number of efforts to find housing for those who find themselves homeless.

Temporary metal barricades will remain in place indefinitely around half the perimeter of a building on University St. at Cathcart St. until engineers can fully evaluate a possible problem with the structure. A situation came to light on Thursday after window washers noticed a block - weighing 600 kilograms - was sticking out an inch, and might possibly come loose. After a preliminary inspection of the building on Friday, the examining engineer hired by the Ville Marie borough ordered that an area 4.8 metres wide and 12 metres long be fenced off from pedestrians.

Montreal fire department chief of operations Richard Laporte hypothesized on Thursday that weather and water infiltration or the vibrations of a large construction project across University could have played a role in loosening the large blocks. Pedestrians on University stared up Friday afternoon, but could see nothing with the naked eye from street level to 10 storeys up. Tumbling structures have made people jittery in recent years. A huge concrete slab slid off a Peel St. building and killed a woman in July 2009, a construction worker was killed on April 8, 2011 when a wall collapsed in Plateau Mont Royal and four workers were injured when bricks peeled off the wall of a Ville Émard school on Aug. 11, 2011.