Janitorial Supplies Buyers' Guide

The liveliest atmosphere and best-reviewed cuisine in town mean little if your building is poorly maintained. That's why having the proper janitorial supplies in your custodian closet should be as important as having the freshest ingredients in the walk-in. These essential supplies will keep your building safe and inviting.

Waste Management

From collecting beverage station waste to hauling away kitchen scraps, commercial trash cans play a big role in foodservice. The right waste management setup can make trash cleanup a breeze, while a poorly-managed system can waste hours of precious time a week and put the safety of your customers, not to mention your health score, in jeopardy.

Trash Cans

Trash containers come in all shapes and sizes, from large, utilitarian trash cans for the kitchen to smaller receptacles for offices. Also available are a number of specialty trash cans, including color-coded containers to help you keep track of hazardous material and other contents that need to be kept separate from your general waste stream.

Where appearance matters, decorative trash cans blend in discretely with their environments. These include low-profile, half-round receptacles for entryways and hallways. Quick-serve and fast-casual concepts should invest in essential high-capacity dining room trash receptacles with tray-return areas.

When it's time to round up all the trash in the building before you lock up for the night, a trash cart makes quick work of hauling all your various trash, helping you complete this task in less time and with fewer trips. You may prefer tilt trucks with a sloping front that make trash easy to dump out or cube trucks with straight sides that can haul a good amount of trash in a relatively small footprint.

Recycling Bins and Cigarette Receptacles

Implementing a recycling program is a key part of being a socially-responsible business owner these days. Recycle bins make it simple to sort your different recyclable materials into easy-to-manage containers. Whether you're looking for single-stream paper bins for the offices or comprehensive four-compartment bins that sort plastic, paper, compost, and landfill waste, you'll find a solution here.

Cigarette receptacles are accessories that shouldn't be neglected. They can play a huge role in keeping your grounds looking neat. These range from high-capacity receptacles that can be placed near your entryways and designated smoking areas to more discrete, wall-mounted bins that can be placed strategically to encourage visitors not to litter. Another option is to purchase a specialty lid for your existing outdoor trash cans which let them also double as ashtrays. Open sand urn ash trays are a more traditional, cost-effective, and easy-to-maintain approach.

Floor Maintenance

Chances are, a good deal of your janitorial staff's time is spent maintaining floors. A well-kept floor is an obvious sign that you take pride in your business, and it shows that customer and employee safety is a priority. Floor maintenance supplies include the tools that are essential for getting that work done efficiently.

Choosing a Mop Head

No single tool is as important to maintaining clean floors as a mop. Mop heads come in a number of designs and materials. Choosing the right one depends on your budget and intended use.

• Cotton mops are a classic choice, and remain the most economical. Although they're affordable and will serve you fine for lighter cleanup jobs, they must be replaced frequently and they're not a good solution for cleaning up hazardous waste.
• Synthetic and microfiber mops offer superior durability. They can be laundered and reused many more times than cotton mops, and offer superior release and cleaning efficiency, though you'll pay a bit more for the benefits.

Mop Features

Tail bands keep individual mop strands from bunching up, so you get better floor coverage. Woven and yarn tail bands are available.

The headband is the part of the mophead that holds the strands of yarn together. It's also the piece that clamps to the mop handle. Mopheads come with different sizes of headbands depending on which type of handle they're designed for use with. Clamp-style mop handles accept much wider headbands than gate-style handles. Like tailbands, headbands are often made with certain features to enhance usability.

Woven headbands and PVC-coated headbands help promote quicker, more thorough drying for improved sanitation and usefulness. The latter also resist chemicals, so they last longer. Locked stitching improves product durability and prevents the mop head from coming apart before the end of its useful life.

Other Essential Floor Care Accessories

Standard broom and mop handles are 1-inch thick with ³⁄₄ inch threads. Those threads are universal between different manufacturers, so you should have no trouble matching new handles, sweepheads, or other attachments with your existing pieces.

The most popular broom handle and mop handle length is 60 inches, which is the optimal length for ergonomic sweeping for the average person. Longer and shorter lengths are not uncommon and should be chosen based on their intended use, like cleaning in hard-to-reach places, which may necessitate a longer or shorter handle. Telescoping handles are adjustable to be adapted for different jobs.

Squeegees are another essential floor maintenance tool. These make quick work of clearing surfaces of water after cleaning or spills. Many of them are made with sponges that are used to scrub floors clean.

Nearly as important as keeping your floors clean is making sure they're outfitted with the appropriate floor mats where needed. This ranges from anti-fatigue floor mats that can make working conditions a little bit more comfortable for employees to entrance mats that can help keep water and dirt out of your building. Non-slip rubber mats should be placed around any equipment that generates grease and areas where there may be liquid on the floor, including in and around bars, to keep staff safe from slipping.

Clean, Tidy, Restrooms

Little can leave a guest as disappointed as an ill-maintained restroom. That's why having the necessary bathroom supplies and procedures in place is critical to keeping a satisfied clientele. A pleasant visit to the restroom starts with tidy facilities. To that end, invest in toilet brushes and plungers, urinal screens and deodorizers, and air fresheners. The floor maintenance supplies mentioned above will also play a crucial part in your effort to keep restrooms clean.

The second step in maintaining satisfactory restrooms is to give your guests access to the essential supplies, beginning with toilet seat covers, paper towel dispensers, and toilet paper dispensers.

Giving guests the resources they need to wash their hands is the final step in ensuring they leave your restrooms a loyal customer. Soap dispensers and hand sanitizers dispensers situated near hand sinks will help you accomplish this end.

The debate continues to rage over which is the superior hand-drying method: paper towels or hand dryers. Hand dryers are often celebrated as the eco-friendly choice, while there are plenty of reasons that paper towels still have a place on the restroom wall. In reality, it may pay off to offer both, letting customers choose the method they prefer.

Well-Equipped Cleaning Staff

Janitor & Housekeeping Carts

Janitorial staff can't do their jobs effectively without the right supplies, and one of the most essential tools is a well-outfitted janitor cart. The bare essential janitor cart will include shelves for holding tools and cleaning supplies, holders for handled tools like brooms and mops, a mop bucket platform, and a trash bag holder. More deluxe versions include caddies and/or cabinets, some of which lock to secure your supplies while the carts are unattended. Additionally, some carts include two waste containers - one for landfill trash and another for recyclables. Utilitarian blue and gray carts with highly-visible yellow trash bags are the norm, but all-black models with metallic accents are available, which are favored in high-end establishments where traditional equipment could be deemed an eyesore.

Like janitorial carts, housekeeping carts come with a number of standard features, including trash bag containers and laundry hampers, plus shelves for linens, cleaning supplies, and a stock of replenishment toiletries. Also like janitorial carts, these are available with extra security features like locking drawers and cabinets to keep the carts safe from plunder when they are left parked. These are available with the same black, upscale aesthetic as janitor carts, and some even include wood grain accents to really class things up.

Organization & Safety

It's not just your staff's mobile duties that benefit from staying well-organized, but your janitorial and housekeeping supply rooms also need to remain tidy and accessible for your staff to be efficient and successful. That's where our selection of closet organizers and tool holders come in handy. These supplies include tool holders that let you organize items like brushes, mops, and brooms. These storage solutions help minimize clutter, improve safety, and streamline your janitorial staff's workflow.

Of course, superior organization and the greatest tools won't get you very far at all without the cleaning supplies to get the job done. This includes those all-important consumables ranging from trash bags to glass cleaner. This category also includes the chemicals you need to keep your equipment clean and sanitized, from oven degreaser to coffee grinder cleaner.

Cleanliness is critical, but safety should always be your number one priority. Safety supplies enable you to keep guests and staff safe from slips, trips, and falls. These items include wet floor signs, barriers, spill kits, and "Closed for Cleaning" door signs.