SUSTAINABLE CLEANING
THE TRUTH ABOUT WATER
Matt Baines of Premiere Products looks at the extent to which chemicals can be deemed “environmentally friendly”, and reflects on their own brand, Ecoforce.
The last 12 months or so have seen a number of developments relating to the manufacture of "water activating" technology for the cleaning industry, which have been widely publicised and surely do not require any further detail adding by yours truly. However, we seem fi nally to have conclusive proof that – for those who were ever in need of it – man cannot clean by water alone! I am of course referring specifi cally to indoor cleaning in those environments where cleanliness and hygiene are of the utmost importance.
As most of us know, water has been employed in the name of cleaning since time immemorial, and continues to this day to be a large constituent part of even the most modern cleaning systems proven to provide measurable results. In short, without it we would be truly hamstrung from a cleaning perspective – and in many other ways of course.
However, water alone isn’t capable of cleaning in a truly effective manner due to the existence of surface tension. Water molecules are mutually attracted to one another, resulting in the liquid's surface displaying elastic-like properties, prohibiting the successful break-down and emulsifi cation of soil into solution. This is to say nothing of killing bacteria, viruses, spores and so on, which water is obviously unable to do on its own.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that water alone is effective when coupled with microfi bre technology, but I feel that it's time to accept
78
that most premises require the application of a cleaning chemical in some shape or form. Taking this as given, there remain two opposite but equally concerning points of view that continue to persist amongst certain factions of the cleaning industry:
1
That recent revelations concerning supposedly 'green' alternatives
to conventional cleaning are yet further evidence of manufacturers/ suppliers attempting to hoodwink their customers into spending money on "greenwash" cleaning systems, purporting to deliver signifi cant environmental advantages, but which are widely discredited. The summary being that it isn’t possible to deliver an effi cacious cleaning service and be environmentally concerned.
OR 2
That ‘chemical’ is the ultimate dirty word in modern professional
cleaning, and that all substances termed ‘chemical’ can only be polluting and impact negatively on human health. The summary being that it is not possible to use cleaning chemicals and be environmentally concerned.
While I have considerable respect for those who take the time to feel passionately about our industry, I’m afraid I have to say that these opinions are quite simply inaccurate and ill- advised. At Premiere, we have long aimed to provide the safest and most effective cleaning chemicals we can at any given point in time, taking into consideration the user, the surface being cleaned and the environment.
This journey of on-going improvement began over 30 years ago with the development of a hazard deregulation policy that saw us being amongst the fi rst cleaning chemical manufacturers to ban the use of raw materials such as formaldehyde and phthalates in our formulations. Since then we have continued to strengthen our environmental policy, source safer alternatives to known hazardous raw materials and achieve ISO 14001 accreditation for our manufacturing processes. Along with doing all of this to ensure that our core product range was as environmentally viable as possible, there obviously came a point where it made sense to develop a branded environmental/ sustainable range of cleaning solutions and thus Ecoforce™ was born.
We decided fairly early on in the development process that self- certifying this range was not in- keeping with our ethos, believing that independent environmental accreditation adds value and meaning to the Ecoforce™ offering. Despite the fact that there are a whole host of standards available, the EU Ecolabel award was ultimately identifi ed as being the perfect fi t for us. Surely, then, we can conclusively counter both of the arguments previously listed; it is absolutely possible to achieve effective and environmentally sound cleaning results using cleaning chemicals – the standards prove it to be so.
www.premiereproducts.co.uk
SUSTAINABLE CLEANING SPONSORSHIP: PREMIERE PRODUCTS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104
