THE HIDDEN COSTS OF A RAG


Rags have been used in industry for many years, and are often regarded as an economical wiping solution. But are they really as cheap as they seem? Matt Medhurst from Tork manufacturer Essity investigates.


Rags are ubiquitous in the industrial workplace. They are used for everything from mopping up spills to cleaning components and wiping people’s hands.


And on the face of it, reusing old clothes for such tasks instead of throwing them away make sense. So rags have long been considered a practical and low-cost wiping solution for industrial environments: but are they really as cheap as they seem?


In fact, there are many hidden costs associated with the use of rags – costs that are not always easy to quantify when taking delivery of a ragbag.


For example, rags are heavy, bulky and cumbersome to move around. The average rag weighs around eight times as much as a typical purpose-designed cleaning cloth, and this makes ragbags much more difficult – and more expensive – to transport and handle than ready- to-use wipers. The disposal of rags after use gives rise to another hidden cost, since waste disposal services are often charged by weight.


Rags also require a great deal of storage space in an industrial workplace. Compressed bundles of rags use more than 4.5 times the space of a typical pack of purpose-designed wipers – and once the bag has been opened the contents will start to spill out and take up considerably more room.


A bag of mixed rags will also need to be sorted through by hand before use and those that are too small, excessively stained or that have zips or other fasteners will need to be discarded. Sorting through bundles of mixed rags is a time- consuming process and one that will have a knock-on effect on productivity.


Rags vary in absorbency and some have a tendency to soak up large quantities of solvent and retain it within the cloth. This can result in excessive amounts of solvent being used which will again have cost implications. There will also be the risk of solvent-soaked cloths left lying around the workplace, which could compromise employee health and safety.


And how much time and effort does it take to clean a surface with a rag compared with a purpose-designed cloth? We decided to find


48 | INDUSTRIAL CLEANING


this out for ourselves by commissioning an independent research institute to carry out some tests.


“Sorting through bundles of mixed rags is a time-


consuming process and one


that will have a knock-on effect on productivity.”


In the first test we asked operatives at the Swerea Research Institute in Sweden to attempt to remove dried paint from a metal surface with the aid of solvents. The 60cm x 90cm surface had been painted with an alkyd-based primer and research assistants were given 10ml of solvent to help them remove it. They were then allowed to add more solvent in increments of five millilitres if this was necessary to help remove the paint.


One operative used cotton rags while another used mixed rags and a third employed Tork Heavy-Duty Cleaning Cloths.


When using Tork Heavy-Duty Cleaning Cloths, the task was found to take 117 seconds and require 33ml of solvent. When using cotton or mixed rags the same job took 172-181 seconds – between 32 and 35% longer - and required 55- 56ml of solvents, or 40% more than when using the purpose-designed cloth.


In a second test a mixture of asphalt and grease was applied to a metal surface and operatives were asked to remove it with the aid of a degreasing agent. They were then asked to assess how difficult the task had been on a scale of one to four. The results revealed that Tork cloths were assessed to require between 20 and 31% less effort to achieve the same result.


However, tests cannot be used to compare the more abstract elements of systems and processes. And it is often hard to determine the root of a particular problem.


For instance, when productivity falls, a company will not necessarily trace its issues back to an inefficient wiping job. Similarly, when


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