New Accreditations to Enhance TRSA Members Competitiveness

TRSA announced on June 6 at the Clean ’11 trade show that it plans to unveil later this year new programs that will audit members’ operations to accredit them as environmentally and hygienically sound so they can be positioned as superior market alternatives to their competition.

The programs include:

• “Clean and Green” (this program’s working title) is a step up from TRSA’s LaundryESP®, in which members track their individual water, energy and chemical consumption and discharge data so it can be consolidated into industrywide averages and reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). TRSA’s Clean and Green will add standards that specify how members should compile their individual data and the program will enable textile service operations to publicly compare their performance to industry norms.
• “Hygienically Clean” will evaluate TRSA members’ operating practices to ensure maximum invulnerability to infection in laundry and material handling. In addition to base standards covering any type of laundry work, separate criteria will be created for healthcare, hospitality and industrial laundry specialists.

TRSA will accredit member companies supported by contracted auditing and standards-setting for third-party verification. Third parties will propose accreditation criteria and develop specific measurement processes necessary to attest to the effective performance of TRSA companies earning accreditation.

“TRSA member companies are experts in sustainability beyond their marketing of reusable textiles and their efficient use of water, energy and chemistry,” stated TRSA President Joseph Ricci. “They deploy business practices that simultaneously achieve environmental protection, social responsibility and their own economic viability. The new TRSA accreditation programs will document their business practices to these ends and demonstrate to their customers, prospects and regulatory authorities the extent of our industry’s commitment to these goals.”

At Clean ’11, TRSA’s Clean and Green Task Force is reviewing proposals from consultants who will create the manuals, documents and processes that member companies will use to qualify for accreditation by a third-party agency. The Task Force consists of members from the TRSA Environmental Affairs Committee and Marketing Committee, with Mark Lewis, Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply Inc., Jessup, PA, chairing the Clean and Green panel and Jim Buckman, Cintas Corp., Cincinnati, as vice chair.

The TRSA Board of Directors also is discussing possibilities for the Hygienically Clean program at the Clean Show. TRSA members’ best practices have long satisfied these customers’ need for assurance their garments and other laundered textile supplies won’t contaminate their production. “We want the industry’s customers to better understand why the uniforms, linens and other textile products that TRSA members deliver to them are hygienically clean,” Ricci said. “The new TRSA program will portray our members’ dedication to producing laundered goods of the highest microbiological quality.”

Release date: 06/13/2011

Contact: Jerry Martin, V.P. of Sales & Marketing (949) 250-4850 ext 275

Source: trsa.org

By: Jerry Martin, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Prudential Overall Supply