The Evolution of How Floor Finishes Became More Green

By: WAXIE Floor Care Specialist Team  |  May 16, 2017

Historically, green floor finishes were considered inferior to conventional floor finishes. That belief was generally based on durability of green floor finish. Third-party floor finish certifications, such as Green Seal GS-40 or ECOLOGO UL 2777, contain many stringent requirements, but the most significant factor is eliminating metal compounds from the floor finish.

Conventional floor finishes generally utilize zinc to for “crosslinking” within the formula. This creates a very strong and durable bond, helping with durability, wear, scuff resistance, etc. Some early green floor finishes used calcium for crosslinking, instead of zinc. While they met third-party standards, they didn’t meet customer standards. It just wasn’t as durable and the finish “walked off,” leading to more maintenance and more expense for facility operators.

Today more progressive chemists have designed a method that enable polymers within floor finish to interlink with each other within the formula. They don’t require zinc or calcium crosslinking. This interlinking creates a more robust and stronger platform than anything we’ve ever seen before, and they meet all third-party green certification standards.

Why does this matter?

New green floor finishes, like WAXIE-Green Armor II and WAXIE-Green Advantage Plus, create a more durable, scuff resistance finish than ever before. Customers can achieve better results while using low VOC, third-party certified floor finishes!

Most important, these finishes last longer which means less burnishing, less scrub and recoats and less stripping. Labor, material, energy and waste savings are significant, contributing to a triple bottom line payoff for your facility…safer for people, less impact on the environment, and cost savings to operations.

Developing your hard floor care program

The best way to get started is defining your desired objectives by category:

• Performance/customer expectations
• Health & safety
• Environmental impact
• Operational cost

Then set a baseline from your current program. Finally, work with your staff, peers and industry experts to develop the best program possible to improve your floor care maintenance. You may be surprised how technology and processes have advanced to allow you to improve your operations while using more sustainable products. 

Have questions on how to revamp your hard floor care cleaning & maintenance program? Get in touch with a WAXIE representative near you.

READ MORE:

• Choosing the Correct Floor Pad
• Create a Green Cleaning Strategy for Your School
• Do's & Don't for Cleaning Linoleum & Marmoleum Floors
• Finding the Green in Cleaning Products
• Frequency for Cleaning & Maintaining Hard Floor Surfaces