After the day’s final lunch bell chimed at Hawkins Elementary School on Thursday, the cafeteria floor was left sticky and sprinkled with garbage. As soon as the students left the cafeteria, two custodians filled their mop buckets with water and added a couple of tablespoons of all-purpose cleaner made by Hillyard, a Missouri-based company that prides itself on making eco-friendly cleaning products.

Six years ago, custodians would have dumped a pungent cleaning product containing ammonia into the buckets, according to Clare Atkins, Jefferson School District’s director of maintenance.

There has been a recent push by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation that advises, but doesn’t require, school districts to use eco-friendly cleaning products instead of more popular cleaners, like Windex, that contain ammonia.

The first push toward green products came in January 2001, when the Assembly enacted the Healthy Schools Act of 2000, which required schools to post what cleaning products and pesticides were used.

School districts must now post a sign on campus 24 hours before and after they use poison to kill pests.

Banta Elementary School District spent about 35 percent extra this school year to replace its cleaners with eco-friendly products to meet the recommendations.

"Gradually, they have new regulations, and recently, there’s a big push to go green," Banta Superintendent William Draa said. "But, just like anything else, they become a little more expensive."

Atkins says Jefferson schools might pay slightly more up front for the green, concentrated cleaners, but in the end, they’ll save. The products come with a machine that measures the cleaner, so there’s none wasted.

In 2001, five years before the latest recommendations, Atkins got rid of the more than two dozen cleaning products that were used to wipe down the district’s three schools. She replaced them with just three products: a disinfectant, a window cleaner and an all-purpose cleaner, all made by Hillyard.

She said most of the products custodians had been using had serious warning labels.

"Toxins in a school are scary," Atkins said. "If a kid were to get their hands on these (new green products) for some reason, I wouldn’t panic."

Jefferson School District also led the way in green transportation two years ago when it received a bus from Tracy Peaker Plant that runs on natural gas. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. donated a fuel station for the bus.

Atkins met with a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. representative Thursday to talk about replacing the lights in the district’s three multipurpose rooms with white bulbs that use mirrors to produce more light using a lower wattage than standard bulbs. The PG&E representative told Atkins the district would see savings on utility bills within nine months. The district is waiting on a cost estimate from PG&E before the decision to purchase the lights goes to the school board.

"Green is just in my nature," Atkins said. "And the district backs me up when it means the schools are all-around safer for kids."