DIV11/49: CONCENTRATE AND MAKE A SUPER DECISION (4 April 2012)

Issue Date: 4 April 2012
Ref: DIV11/49

J-Flex is one of the concentrate platforms from Sealed Air's Diversey business.

CONCENTRATE AND MAKE A SUPER DECISION

Faced with a bewildering range of options when choosing chemicals and dosing equipment it is easy to be trapped into thinking all products are the same. But choosing the right combination can help any organisation to get the best benefits in terms of cost control and reduction, improved cleaning performance, better productivity, and reduced wastage and packaging which all help to promote sustainability.

Super concentrates meet these objectives very well but only when used with the right equipment. The key is to produce accurate solutions that deliver superior cleaning performance with none of the under- or overdosing that leads to inconsistency, wastage and unproductive repeat cleaning associated with pour or glug mixing.

It is important to distinguish between dosing and dilution control. In simple terms, dosing controls the amount of product dispensed although there is little or no management of the amount of water involved. In practice, when dosing into a standard size spray bottle, bucket or cleaning machine the resultant dilution will be reasonably accurate as long as the right equipment is used and the manufacturer’s recommendations are followed. Dilution control goes one stage further by ensuring the correct amount of product is always mixed with the appropriate amount of water, typically by mixing the two automatically as they are dispensed into the chosen receptacle.

The innovative QuattroSelect, J-Flex, Exact and SmartDose platforms from Sealed Air’s Diversey business offer building care contractors and cleaning teams total flexibility to choose efficient and sustainable super concentrated products for workplaces of any size. Each platform can be used with a complete range of products for spray bottles, buckets and scrubber driers. Careful design and co-ordinated colour-coding of chemicals, platform equipment and accessories, including labels, screen printed spray bottles and microfibre cloths, promotes safety-in-use and simplifies training. The interactive website at www.diverseyconcentrates.com helps users to choose the right product for their particular application.

QuattroSelect utilises super concentrate pouches and is ideal for centralised or intensive applications. Four products from a range of eleven can be used at any one time to provide users with complete flexibility to choose the right solution for their particular application. For example, Jontec Forward can be used for cleaning heavily used floors with no polish while Jontec 300 is more suited to the highly polished floors found in hospitals. J-Flex is designed for medium sized applications or where portability is required, and utilises special compact bottled products when connected to an available water supply. Both produce highly accurate solutions and, as they are completely closed systems, minimise the risk of users coming into contact with neat chemical.

Applications which require control over product usage but where dilution control is impractical, for example because of lack of water connection, are best served by the portable Exact or SmartDose dosing systems. Each utilises containers with a built-in dosing mechanism to promote simplicity and ease of use. Exact products are supplied in one litre dosing bottles which can be refilled from a highly cost-effective five litre cubitainer. SmartDose is an innovative and convenient dosing system that supports all main daily building care tasks with EU flower concentrates.

The sustainability benefits of accuracy and consistency that lead to superior cleaning performance, efficiency and productivity are augmented by reductions in packaging, transportation and waste. Because water is added at the point of use rather than the place of manufacture the amount of product stored and transported in any given size of container covers considerably more cleaning jobs than conventional bulk chemicals or ready-to-use (RTU) products. This point is illustrated by the J-Flex system where each 1.5 litre container contains as much cleaning chemical as 375 litres of RTU product, equivalent to 500 standard 750ml spray bottles. Each container utilises 0.21kg of plastic packaging compared with 37.0kg used by the 500 RTU bottles, saving 99.4 per cent, and 0.16kg of cardboard packaging compared with 20kg for the RTU, saving 99.2 per cent.

The amount of packaging used with super concentrates requires fewer natural resources and involves simpler and less expensive disposal or recycling. In general, transportation costs for super concentrates are up to 20 times less and warehouse and on-site storage requirements are up to 22 times less than with conventional and RTU products.

Finally, many of the advantages of the Diversey platforms also apply to products used in, among others, TASKI floor care machines, the Clax Revoflow laundry system and various kitchen, lodging and roomcare ranges. Each of these utilises pouches of super concentrate product which is dosed or diluted accurately at the point of use by built-in equipment to ensure users achieve similar cost saving and performance boosting benefits.