advantages, these are said to require little maintenance and eliminate the issue of clogged drains.
Dual flush toilet systems that allow visitors to choose between a half or a full flush option are also becoming the norm in public washrooms. Also, contemporary taps are often designed to turn on and off automatically to prevent washroom users from leaving them running.
Controlling the amount of waste we produce is another important environmental issue – and a great deal of paper tends to be used in the washroom both in toilet tissue and hand towel form. There has been a marked upturn in the use of disposable hand towels during the pandemic, with 60% of people questioned in a 2021 Essity survey claiming they routinely take a paper towel to avoid having to touch washroom surfaces such as door handles and taps.
Many of today’s toilet paper and hand towel dispensers are engineered specifically to prevent over-consumption and reduce waste. For example, the Tork PeakServe Continuous Hand Towel gives out individual sheets of paper so that washroom visitors are discouraged from taking out more than they need.
The Tork SmartOne toilet paper dispenser also reduces consumption by up to 40% because it automatically limits the amount of toilet paper that people take out. The Tork Coreless Toilet Roll system offers sustainability benefits because the compact roll lasts up to five times longer than conventional toilet rolls while resulting in 88% less waste.
In autumn 2021, Essity launched a new service in the UK that will dramatically enhance the sustainability of paper hand towels. Tork PaperCircle is the world’s first recycling service for paper towels, enabling businesses to reduce their environmental footprint by 40% compared with current waste handling options.
Customers signing up for Tork PaperCircle have their used washroom hand towels picked up from their business premises and taken to local recycling centres where they are turned into other tissue products. AstraZeneca – the
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
“Great strides are being made to come up with more sustainable washroom solutions.”
multinational pharmaceutical company behind one of the world’s most widely-administered COVID-19 vaccines – is among the UK’s first Tork Paper Circle customers. In November 2021, the service was showcased at COP26, the leading global climate change summit held at Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus.
People are becoming increasingly conscious of the need to adopt sustainable practices at home, at work – and in the washroom. This emerged in a survey of 2000 office workers carried out by Essity to mark the launch of Tork PaperCircle in the UK.
Eco-unfriendly practices highlighted by staff members included the use of electric hand dryers that use energy all day, lights and heating being left on unnecessarily, and a lack of options for recycling washroom hand towels.
Eight out of 10 office employees said they would like their workplace to be more environmentally-friendly, while 46% believed the green initiatives taken by their bosses were often an afterthought. 48% felt concerns about costs were preventing their employers from encouraging more sustainable practices.
Sustainability is becoming an important issue to many of us, and most people need little encouragement to adopt more eco-friendly practices.
So, the writing is on the wall for public facilities. It’s time for them to step up and provide washrooms that are neither overheated nor unnecessarily lit, that incorporate low- flush systems, and that are equipped with dispensers that prevent waste and over-consumption. If they also subscribe to a hand towel recycling system, that will be the icing on the sustainability cake.
www.tork.co.uk/sustainability SUSTAINABILITY | 41
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