ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

ECJ asks manufacturers how they limit the amount of waste they produce - and finds out about the schemes they have in place to reuse or recycle any surplus.

WASTE IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST issues facing industry today. And in a world where we are all striving to re-use and recycle it can be hard to accept that some industry by-products simply need to be thrown away after use.

According to dispenser producer Losdi marketing and communications manager Pau Ortiz, between 7,000 and 10,000 million tonnes of waste are generated around the world each year – most of which comes from production and industrial processes. This means companies need to have a sustainability plan if they are to reduce their environmental impact while also remaining profitable.

“If we continue along our current path it will not only aggravate the problem of climate change, it will also worsen our living conditions due to ocean pollution and poorer air quality,” says Ortiz.
Losdi strives to repurpose all its waste materials, he says. 

“Any injection-moulded plastic that is defective or unusable is crushed and reallocated for future production processes,” he said. “This reduces the volume of waste from resources to practically zero. And our Eco-Luxe paper and soap dispensers are made from 100 per cent recycled post-consumer plastic.”

Kärcher strives to reduce waste from the outset during product development, says senior director corporate sustainability management Marie Kristin Schmidt. “We use recycled material in place of virgin materials where we can and ensure our products are as durable and repairable as possible, while also avoiding any unnecessary packaging,” she said. “We also consider how to give our products a second life after they have fulfilled their function at the customer’s site.”

Protects from damage

Packaging can generate a great deal of waste – but also fulfils a variety of key roles, says Schmidt. “It protects our products from damage and maintains their quality while also providing information to consumers. But since packaging makes heavy use of resources and presents recycling challenges we’re consistently developing it in the light of our ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ initiative.”

An increasing number of Kärcher products are now packed in materials made from pulp or paper she says. ”We have significantly reduced our consumption of plastics by optimising film thicknesses and by using different compositions.”

Schmidt claims the company is saving 13 tonnes of plastic per year by replacing polystyrene inlays with corrugated cardboard in selected packaging. “We are also always exploring the possibility of reducing or replacing plastic bags in our machine and accessory packaging.”

Resource management

However, most of the waste in Kärcher’s plants comes from suppliers’ packaging materials, she says. “This includes paper, cardboard and plastics and has become the focus of our resource management,” she said. “Our site in Winnenden has become part of a pilot project and our aim is that by 2025 there will be no need for any disposable plastic packaging for goods procured from local suppliers at the site.”

Waste in itself is not the main sustainability issue, according to Essity’s sustainability communications director Renee Remijnse. “It is only when people fail to reuse waste or when there is a failure to collaborate in its re-use in the supply chain that problems arise,” she said.
As a producer of disposable products the company strives to reduce waste as far as possible, she says.  “We do this by introducing targets on zero waste to landfill and by devising schemes to re-use waste where we can,” said Remijnse.

“For example, 90 per cent of Tork packaging is renewable and we reduce the amount of materials we use by eliminating toilet roll cores, reducing the thickness of plastics and by compressing our products.”

The company has a zero-to-landfill target for all sites by 2030 by which time all the company’s own manufacturing waste will be returned to the production process. “Our products are also designed to reduce consumption in use – for example, Tork SmartOne toilet paper can
reduce consumption by up to 40 per cent,” said Remijnse.

The company also has its own recycling schemes for used paper towels. Around 25 million hand towels in 14 countries are recycled every month under the Tork PaperCircle scheme. “We also recycle used cartons boxes, paper cups and milkshake cups in various locations and we recycle Tork dispensers in four countries where the granulate is used to create newer units,” she said.

Critical levels

Waste is a major global challenge for industries today according to Greenspeed marketing executive Rosaliene Verhoef. “It has a widespread impact on the environment, economy and society as a whole,” she said. “The scale of waste - together with its wrongful disposal - has reached critical levels due to increased consumption and production worldwide. So as a sustainable company, addressing this issue is a must.”

Traditional cleaning products are often associated with significant amounts of packaging waste, according to Verhoef. “We have therefore introduced ‘waste-free cleaning’ to take a stand for a world where cleaning isn’t just about hygiene, but also about care,” she said.

Waste reduction is at the heart of Greenspeed’s sustainable identity, she claims. ”It influences our product development, manufacturing and recycling practices,” she said. “We minimise packaging volume, favour eco-friendly alternatives over plastics and offer highly concentrated products and cleaners in tablet form. By offering durable, reusable and high-quality products we reduce the need for constant replacements and minimise waste generation.”

Bottles from Greenspeed’s detergents are both reusable and recyclable, she says. “They contain a mix of plant plastic and recycled plastic from consumers which reduces the environmental impact of our packaging,” says Verhoef.

Addressing the issue of waste is one of the most significant environmental challenges facing today’s world according to services provider Cleanology’s CEO Dominic Ponniah. “We’ve all seen the images of plastics piling up in our oceans and on beaches,” he said.

“The cleaning industry has a massive impact on the environment through cleaning solutions, transport, products and equipment. We therefore focus our effort on those areas where we can achieve the greatest environmental impact in the hope that our environmental innovations will become industry norms."

The company runs a paper-free operation as far as possible, he says. “We’ve already switched to digital payslips for staff and e-billing for clients, resulting in a total saving of more than 100,000 sheets of paper a year,” he said.

The company also strives to reduce the amount of plastic it contributes to waste streams. “Since switching to portion-controlled biological cleaning sachets we have cut plastic bottle usage from 22,000 to just 500 PET bottles a year,” he said.

“Our focus has now shifted to deal with the enormous plastic waste created by mop heads with plastic sockets. Given that we use over 135,000 mop heads a year, we are now using mop heads
where only the strings are replaced and not the plastic.”

According to Ponniah, the over-dosing of cleaning chemicals is a major problem in the industry. “While adding an extra cupful of solution may not seem significant, if you multiply that across the 450,000 people in the industry the impact becomes critical,” he said. “To tackle this issue we have introduced portion-controlled biological cleaning sachets and have saved over 144,000 litres of cleaning solution since 2017.”

Portion control

Product manager at Hylab - specialist in dispensers - Joshua Edwardes agrees with other commentators that addressing the issue of waste is of utmost importance. “We operate our own recycling centre where we recycle our scraps and product waste,” he said. “We then regrind these materials back into raw materials and use them to manufacture our products and components. We believe we are one of the few companies to carry out such practices on-site.”

The company also strives to recycle as many other by-products as possible. “For example, materials including shrink wrap, plastics, cardboard, wooden pallets, electronics, metal, glass and paper are all recycled with the support of specialist recycling partners,” he said.

Digital solutions

“Any materials that cannot be recycled are then directed to a waste-to-energy facility to ensure that we achieve zero waste to landfill.”

Hylab has also implemented digital solutions to minimise its use of paper. “And in our production processes we reuse items such as cardboard boxes, cardboard layers, foam layers, wooden pallets, plastic bins, plastic bags, plastic containers and bubble wrap,” he said.

The day-to-day operations of the cleaning industry inevitably has an impact on the environment, says products distributor Jangro’s CEO Joanne Gilliard. “For example, the sector is heavily reliant on single-use plastic and many cleaning products are contained in single-use bottles which have a short lifespan and are usually thrown away after use,” she said.

“So it is important that cleaning brands, manufacturers and suppliers try to minimise waste and collaborate to achieve a circular economy.”

All packaging used at Jangro is recycled, recyclable and biodegradable, she says. “Our outer boxes are made from 100 per cent recycled and FSC certified cardboard and our bottles are made from post-consumer recycled plastic,” she said. “This reduces CO2 emissions and removes physical plastic pollution. And our products are super-concentrated which means
the customer gains more uses from a single container.”

Jangro encourages its customers to retain and refill their sprayers and trigger pump bottles to help reduce plastic consumption. “We also recently introduced our Return, Reuse, Recycle boxes which can be given back to the local distributor when they are no longer required and recycled into something new.”

GOJO, which specialises in hand hygiene solutions, has launched its our own sustainability manifesto entitled Journey to Green. “It sets out clear goals which include how we can minimise waste and help our customers to do the same,” said managing director Chris Wakefield.

“We focus on product design to solve the problem of single-use plastic and achieve zero waste. We use post-consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate in our collapsible refill cartridges and we aim to achieve a 30 per cent reduction in the use of virgin plastic by 2025.”

So reducing waste during everyday operations is a core aim for many cleaning industry companies. But what other waste-reduction schemes do they have that reflect a more innovative, outside-the-box thinking?

Upcycling scheme

Kärcher has introduced an upcycling initiative in Romania whereby plastic scraps that are no longer suitable for product manufacturing are processed into transport boxes. “This significantly reduces both the amount of waste produced and the effort required for the packaging process itself,” said Marie Kristin Schmidt.

Cleanology equips its employees with uniforms made from recycled plastic, says Dominic Ponniah. “This saves 7,000 bottles from landfill each year while also reducing the resources and energy required to manufacture new clothing,” he said.

Hylab provides all its employees with reusable water bottles and mugs as well as filtered water on tap. “This reduces the need for them to purchase water bottles and minimises the waste this involves,” said Joshua Edwardes.

And Greenspeed integrates waste reduction into its IT choices, says Rosaliene Verhoef. “We choose refurbished PCs and laptops to contribute to the circular economy, and we recycle non-functional ones for spare parts to minimise the environmental impact of electronic waste,” she said.