Your best kitchen hand.
Your longest-serving floor staff.
Your cleaner who comes in at 6am before anyone else arrives.
They’re handling your cleaning products every shift.
Do you know what those products are doing to them?
This isn’t about blame
Most business owners don’t choose cleaning products based on chemical composition.
You choose based on what works, what your supplier recommends, and what you’ve always used.
That’s normal.
That’s how most businesses operate.
But it’s worth knowing what you’re asking your staff to handle, because the research on this has been building for years.
What the studies show
Occupational asthma is one of the most common work-related diseases in developed countries.
Cleaning workers are among the highest-risk groups.
The culprits most frequently identified: spray disinfectants and cleaning products containing bleach, quaternary ammonium compounds, and strong fragrances.
These are the staples of most commercial cleaning cupboards.
Regular exposure, not one-off contact, but daily repeated use over months and years, is associated with respiratory sensitisation.
Once someone develops occupational asthma, it doesn’t reverse when they change jobs.
It follows them.
That’s a serious outcome from something most employers don’t think about at all.
The spray problem specifically
Spray application is convenient.
It’s also the highest-exposure delivery method.
When staff spray a product, they inhale a fine mist of whatever’s in it.
With conventional disinfectants, that includes the active biocides, the very chemicals that make the product effective at killing pathogens.
Effective at killing things.
Inhaled daily.
Its worth thinking about.
Your duty of care
Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Victoria), employers have a duty to provide a safe working environment, and that includes managing risks from hazardous substances.
Most cleaning product suppliers provide Safety Data Sheets (SDS).
You’re supposed to have these on file and accessible to staff.
Many businesses don’t know where theirs are.
This isn’t about catching you out.
It’s about knowing that the obligation exists, and that it extends to the cleaning cupboard.
What switching actually looks like for your team
Staff who’ve moved to plant-based formulations often notice the difference before management does.
Less irritation.
No chemical smell at the end of a shift.
Less hand dryness.
Nothing you’d write home about, though the absence of something you’d been tolerating without realising.
That’s the feedback I hear.
Quietly, consistently.
Something worth sitting with
Your staff don’t usually complain about the cleaning products.
They just use them.
If you asked them whether they’d rather use something that does the same job without the chemical hit, what do you think they’d say?
If you want to start that conversation, I’m here for it.
No pressure, no pitch.
Just a straight chat about what’s in your cleaning cupboard and whether there’s a better option.
— Cameron
Cameron Blewett runs Epiktet Supplies, the Victorian distributor for Evolution Organics.
Want to know what’s actually in your current products?