8 Cleaning-Focused Social Businesses

From maintenance services co-ops to compostable towels and non-profit housekeeping services, these cleaning-focused social businesses use cleaning -- either products such as soaps or a range of services -- in order to reach their social goal. The social aspect ranges, too.

CLARITY, for instance, is a social enterprise that works with people with disabilities in order to offer employment, training, skills and job opportunities. In Portland, Maine, there's Hour Exchange, which has been around since 1997. They do a sort of skill exchange service with their volunteers and dental cleaning is one example of the way in which they foster community and a system of reciprocity in order to counter the high unemployment and underemployment rates that exist in the city.