Cleaner Cleaning Supplies You Need for an Office

Maintaining a clean and organized office isn’t just about appearances – it’s about creating a healthy, productive environment for employees and visitors. 

To achieve this, you’ll need the right cleaner cleaning supplies on hand. 

But which janitorial cleaning supplies are essential for an office setting? 

In this guide, we’ll break down the must-haves, from dust brooms to advanced floor machines, and provide tips on efficient organization.

Cleaner Supplies for Every Area of an Office

1. Office Area

The office area includes workstations, meeting rooms, reception areas, and common spaces. 

Maintaining cleanliness here contributes to productivity and creates a positive impression on visitors.

Essential Cleaning Supplies:

• All-Purpose Cleaners: For desks, tables, and shelves.
• Glass Cleaner: Keep windows, mirrors, and glass partitions streak-free. 
• Microfiber Cloths: Ideal for dusting and wiping surfaces without leaving streaks or lint. Microfiber is highly effective at trapping dust and allergens.
  • Keep different colours for different tasks to avoid cross-contamination.
• Disinfectant Sprays: Essential for sanitizing high-touch surfaces like keyboards, mice, door handles, and light switches. 
• Dust Brooms, Brooms and Dustpans: For smooth surfaces like VCT tile, concrete, or linoleum. 
• Vacuum Cleaners: The type depends on your flooring:
  • Upright Vacuums for carpets, with powerful suction and rotating brushes.
  • Backpack Vacuums for large offices, allowing quick movement and less fatigue.
• Garbage Bags: A variety of sizes are needed for under desks, or larger central garbage bins. 

2. Kitchen / Break Room

The kitchen or break room is a high-traffic area prone to spills, stains, and food-related messes. 

Proper cleaning supplies help maintain hygiene and a pleasant atmosphere.

Essential Cleaning Supplies:

• All-Purpose Cleaners: For countertops, tables, and appliance exteriors. Opt for food-safe options to ensure safety.
• Dish Soap and Sponges: For washing dishes and cleaning sinks. Consider biodegradable sponges for an eco-friendly touch.
• Disinfectant Sprays: Necessary for sanitizing countertops, microwave handles, refrigerator doors, and other shared appliances.
• Glass Cleaner: For glass tabletops and appliance surfaces.
• Mop and Bucket: Professional heavy-duty wet mop with a down-press mop wringer.
• Floor Cleaner: Choose a degreasing floor cleaner for kitchen floors prone to spills. 
• Trash Cans and Garbage Bags: Heavy-duty garbage bags for food waste to prevent leaks and odours.
• Paper Towels and Napkins: For quick cleanups and maintaining a tidy area.

3. Washrooms

Washrooms are critical areas for hygiene, but they also serve as a place of relief or disgust depending on their cleanliness. 

Having a dedicated restroom cleaning kit simplifies the process. 

Stocking the right cleaning supplies ensures cleanliness and reduces the spread of germs.

Essential Cleaning Supplies:

• Restroom Cleaning Kit: Keep a dedicated kit for the washroom, including:
  • Caddy Organizer: A caddy keeps all supplies organized and easy to transport.
  • Toilet Bowl Cleaners and Brushes: Choose angled brushes for cleaning under rims. Use a powerful, eco-friendly toilet bowl cleaner to eliminate stains and odours.
  • Disinfectant Cleaners: For sinks, countertops, partitions, and door handles.
  • Glass Cleaner: For mirrors and reflective surfaces.
  • Air Fresheners: Automatic dispensers help maintain a fresh-smelling washroom.
  • Paper Products: Keep toilet paper, sanitary napkins, and paper towels in ample supply to prevent shortages.
  • Hand Soap and Sanitizers: Standard soap is best, but it’s also good to have access to an antibacterial soap as well. 
  • Mop and Bucket: Professional heavy-duty wet mop with a down-press mop wringer. Ideally, you have a different mop for the bathroom floors. 
  • Floor Cleaner: Choose a degreasing floor cleaner for kitchen floors prone to spills. 
  • Garbage Bags: Durable garbage bags for restroom bins to maintain hygiene.

How to Organize Cleaning Supplies Efficiently

Knowing how to organize cleaning supplies helps your janitorial team work efficiently and safely. 

Here are some organizational tips:

• Designate a Storage Area: Choose a secure, easily accessible space like a janitorial closet.
• Categorize Supplies: Group supplies by type – general cleaning, restroom, floor care, and trash management.
• Label Everything: Clear labels allow for quick identification and prevent misuse.
• Safety Precautions: Store hazardous chemicals separately from consumables and in well-ventilated areas.
• Inventory System: Keep track of supplies to avoid shortages or overstocking.

Deep-Dive on Essential Janitorial Cleaning Supplies for Offices

When you’re standing in front of a row of 15 disinfectants or 12 all-purpose cleaners, it’s not always obvious what to buy. 

The above lists by area help give insight into some of the basics, but what about green products, what about proper dilutions, storage, and labelling? And what are fair prices for on-site cleaning supplies?

Chemicals/Solutions/Cleaners

For most offices, you’ll only need 3-4 cleaning solutions: An all-purpose cleaner, a glass cleaner, a disinfectant, and possibly one for hard flooring. 

It’s possible to get quality products that are either conventional or for green cleaning. 

When selecting green cleaning products, look for certifications such as EPA Safer Choice or Green Seal, which indicate that the products meet stringent environmental and safety criteria. 

Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for proper use and dilution to ensure effectiveness and safety.

It’s best to have trigger-spray heads and bottles on hand to be able to dilute the chemicals into the intended spray container. 

In a lot of cases, all-purpose cleaners double as window cleaners. And often, there are disinfectants which are suitable for cleaning floors as well. 

If you have no idea what to use, talk to the supplier, or order a couple of options and try them out to find what’s best. 

Most cleaners today can be diluted quite a bit and remain effective, but always follow the stated ratios. 

Finally, pricing for about 4 litres of a cleaning solution can be anywhere from $10 to $40 depending on the manufacturer, quality, and concentration. 

Dusting Equipment

To maintain the cleanliness and air quality of an office dusting is a core necessity. 

There are three levels of dusting and their frequency:

• Everyday dusting–includes all visible areas at eye level when standing, like blinds, desks, chairs, computers, phones, etc., and can also include floors (if they are not being washed). 
• Monthly dusting–includes top of cupboards, wall-mounted items above head level like extinguishers or fire alarms, tops of partitions, and air vent grates. 
• Annual dusting (if necessary)–includes high ceiling elements like lights or exposed pipes, grates, wiring, or other areas which require telescopic poles or ladders. 

For everyday dusting, microfibre clothes are best. Their ultra-fine fibres trap dust, dirt, and allergens. They are reusable, absorbent, and suitable for both dry dusting and wet cleaning. 

Unlike traditional clothes, they don’t leave streaks or lint behind, making them perfect for glass, electronics, and other delicate surfaces.

Some types of blinds might need a feather duster to be cleaned properly, such as Venetian Blinds, but you might be able to get away with using a microfibre. 

If you have large areas of hard flooring, then having a dust mop is ideal. 

For higher surfaces you will need a telescopic pole, or if you have a detachable broom handle, that can work as well. 

For the really high areas of an office with exposed 20-foot ceilings, you will need tall ladders or multiple-stage telescopic poles. It’s also important to have a robust type of feather duster that can hold a lot of layered dust. 

For cleaning high areas that pile up, it’s also good to have eye protection and dust masks or a respirator. 

Floor Care Supplies and Equipment

Although this is probably painfully obvious, there are two kinds of flooring: hard surface and carpet. 

There are many types of hard flooring, such as VCT, linoleum, concrete, and terrazzo. 

There are many types of carpets, such as nylon, polyester, acrylic, olefin, and wool. 

Hard Surfaces: 

For removal of dust on hard surfaces, it’s pretty easy, dust mops or wet mops.

It’s common for a quick-drying wax solution to be put down on any hard flooring that has regular traffic on it. 

This protects the flooring from abrasion and wear and with enough wax regularly applied, it can extend the life of a floor for anywhere from 15-20 years or more (depending on the quality of the hard surface). 

With repeated application of wax, there is inevitable build-up, and the wax itself can start to look bad. 

There are lots of ways to maintain wax, including light of full stripping and re-waxing, burnishing, or regular deep cleaning. 

The equipment for waxing is a mop and it’s usually good to have a garbage bag to tie around the mop head after use since wax mops are hard to clean and not good to use for other cleaning once they’ve been used for wax. You’ll also need your jug or container of wax to pour out as you move. 

Doing light or full stripping and re-waxing or regular deep cleaning means you’ll need to have a floor machine (auto-scrubber) of some kind–ride standing or ride along. New, these machines are anywhere from $2000 to $10,000. 

For burnishing, a special type of high-speed floor machine is used, and can also start around $2000. 

Carpets: 

For the removal of dust from carpets there’s vacuuming and hot-water extraction. 

Vacuuming needs to be done regularly to be effective, and backpack vacuums are great for high-frequency and large layouts. For a deeper clean an upright vacuum with a beater bar is best. 

For truly deep carpet cleaning, you’ll need portable units or a trunk mount. This is because carpet works like an air filter, trapping all airborne material into its fibres. 

Vacuuming helps keep the levels at a minimum, but the only way to really remove a large percentage of the dirt from the fibres is to flush them with water and high-powered suction.

Upright vacuums can start around $500 and go to over $1000 pretty easily, and backpack vacuums are similar. 

Carpet portables start around the $3000 mark and truck mounts are around $10,000 new and need to be built into a utility vehicle to be able to run, so altogether it’s probably upwards of $50,000. Best to call a company that owns these already. 

Disposable Janitorial Supplies

It’s easy now to get green cleaning supplies that are good quality at any janitorial supply store, the only barrier is the cost. 

Paper towels, toilet paper, garbage bags, and all cleaning solutions that are eco-friendly and green can be found. 

Determining whether or not you can afford them is up to you, but the costs are getting more and more marginal. 

When deciding on paper towels and toilet paper–items that get used often and need constant restocking–price might be a bigger factor. 

For garbage bags, you can often get away with keeping the same bag in a given garbage bin as long as something wet or stinky isn’t thrown out. Often desk garbage is just dry material and can be dumped into a single large bag while doing rounds. 

It might take a couple of months to determine your costing based on usage.

But one other really important part is quality. You and your staff will know if the quality of the toilet paper is not great and you will feel it quite literally every day. 

There are lots of options for this kind of disposable supply, so make sure you figure out what’s both affordable but also pleasant to use. 

Where to Find Quality Cleaning Supplies

To maintain a steady stock of cleaning essentials, it’s important to partner with a reliable cleaning supplies supplier. 

Many offices benefit from buying commercial cleaning supplies in bulk, which is cost-effective and convenient. 

If you’re searching for “cleaning supplies near me,” explore local janitorial stores or trusted online suppliers offering delivery options.

For those of you in the Lower Mainland, check out our list of the Top 10 Janitorial Supplies Companies in Vancouver. 

Professional Help: Office Cleaning Janitorial Services

Managing office cleanliness internally can be challenging, especially in larger spaces. 

Outsourcing to office cleaning janitorial services can save time and ensure consistent results. 

Professional cleaners bring their own janitorial office cleaning supplies, allowing your team to focus on core business tasks.

Final Thoughts

Keeping an office clean requires strategic planning and the right janitorial items. 

By investing in high-quality cleaner cleaning supplies and organizing them effectively, you create a productive and healthy work environment. 

Whether you opt for in-house maintenance or hire office cleaning janitorial services, understanding the essentials is key.

Ready to stock up on janitorial cleaning supplies? Partner with a trusted janitorial company like Metropolitan today to ensure your office stays spotless and efficient.