Keeping down costs with accurate dispensing

With the enormous amount of price pressure and competition in the cleaning industry, organisations are constantly looking for ways to decrease overheads while remaining competitive.

WHEN IT comes to dosing and dispensing, a common misconception is that the purchasing price of a unit is one of the most important factors to consider in maintaining healthy margins. But in reality this often only has a minor impact over the long-run. Looking at the bigger picture, including the costs and benefits of a unit over its entire lifecycle is where impacts on bottom lines are usually felt the most — across the entire supply chain, from  to end users. Latest innovations in chemical dispensing technology are helping ensure both cleaning performance and healthy margins, for chemical manufacturers and end users alike.

One of the most important factors to consider in keeping down costs, while optimising revenue, is the ongoing accuracy of a dispensing unit. One common problem with a lot of dispensing equipment is that over time the level of chemical being dispensed drops off as parts wear out. This can lead to a number of problems. The immediate effect is that, quite simply, when the level of chemical being dispensed drops below the required amount per use, less chemical will be dispensed. This results in decreased cleaning performance, making hygiene and cleanliness standards impossible to maintain.

Ironically, while the amount of chemical being dispensed is actually lower, the end result can be chemical wastage, as garments or surfaces need to be cleaned more than once – overall using even more chemical than should have been dispensed in the first place. This not only makes the jobs of cleaning operatives more difficult, but also means increased labour costs, as time is spent on re-cleaning.

A drop-off in the level of chemical being dispensed by a unit can cause problems for chemical manufacturers too. Firstly, it damages customer loyalty, as operators lose trust in products that don’t get the job done the first time. This can result in unsatisfied customers and ultimately lost contracts. Secondly, to remedy the issue of chemical drop-off, maintenance is required. These costs can quickly add up. For example, if a peristaltic tube wears out, the call out cost may only be £50, but multiply that by hundreds of installed units and that’s a lot of money and time that needs to be spent on maintenance.

Modern automated dosing and dispensing systems can help optimise these expenses by ensuring the efficient use of chemicals with every use, reducing operator time and guaranteeing cleaning performance.  There are a number of technologies available on the market to regulate the level of chemical being dispensed.

Hydro Systems is the industry leader in venturi, which it has perfected over years of experience working with this technology. The incoming water stream is restricted by a nozzle, while the speed of the outgoing water is decreased by the inverted funnel shape at the bottom of the venturi. The result is a vacuum in the middle, where the chemical is sucked into the water stream. The amount of chemical introduced is regulated by interchangeable metering tips that restrict chemical flow into the water stream.

Hydro’s venturi technology enables dilution accuracy, meaning the right amount of chemical is mixed each time – ensuring cleaning performance is maximised.  The device does not require external electricity, batteries, pumps, or air and instead runs off ordinary water pressure available in most buildings.

Thanks to the continual investment in innovation within the industry, state-of-the-art dispensing systems are answering the industry’s challenges, by providing well-designed, high quality dispensing equipment that ensures consistently good performance over the life of a system and helps keep down costs.   Greater investment in design and engineering has meant dispensing systems have become more versatile and accurate, which is leading to bottom line results.

Mark Fitzgerald
Regional Sales Manager MEA
Hydro Systems

Keeping down costs with accurate dispensing

Sanitary Solutions & Waste Disposal

The disposal of sanitary napkins, though more a health and hygiene issue, gets complicated when the waste  is thrown away polluting the environment with its non-biodegradable content and inorganic components. However, eco-friendly pads and incineration could address some predominant problems. Vijayalakshmi Sridhar talks to hygiene advocates on alternatives and awareness of sanitary hygiene and waste disposal.

Sanitary napkin disposal is a worldwide problem. The impact is more pronounced in India because of the unorganized ways of municipal solid waste management and poor community collection, disposal and transportation networks in the cities and villages.

With an estimated potential of 9000 tonnes of sanitary waste (of 432 million pads) getting generated annually and more than 80% of this waste either getting flushed down the toilet or getting dumped in the landfill, India is facing a serious problem.

Incineration

In an attempt to minimize the mounting sanitary waste at the landfills, the Government of India has installed incinerators, to begin with in educational institutions.  V. Ramachandran,  CEO-President, Glolifecare Equipments Pvt Ltd explains, “Incinerators reduce the sanitary waste to sterile ash in a matter of seconds and this can be used as manure or can be flushed down the toilet. Glolifecare machines are test certified by NABL accredited laboratories for all the components/ materials used and also for the emission levels.”

At this point, while incinerator emissions are being disputed, it is important to recognize the divide in the issue of hygiene. Women in remote rural areas in the country are still bogged by societal taboos and lack financial and emotional freedom to use and dispose off sanitary napkins. In an attempt to provide such women with affordable and ecofriendly sanitary napkins, a few manufacturers have emerged in the last few years.

Pad-making Machine

Arunachalam Muruganantham, Founder and CEO, Jayashree Industries, set out with the mission of devising a machine to manufacture eco-friendly pads, when his wife refrained from using hygienic disposable pads, because it would require cutting down household expenses. Today, Jayashree Industries gives away eco-friendly pad-making machines to women in the poor and underdeveloped villages. Muruganantham plans to keep the business motive away and create a fresh market for sanitary pads. The women who manufacture the pads sell them too. Speaking of the disposal of these pads, Muruganantham says, “The pads can be buried after use.”

With an estimated potential of 9000 tonnes of sanitary waste (of 432 million pads) getting generated annually and more than 80% of this waste either getting flushed down the toilet or getting dumped in the landfill, India is facing a serious problem.

Jaydeep Mandal, Founder and Managing Director, Aakar Innovations Ltd, manufacturers of low-cost and compostable sanitary Anandi pads, which are being used by some school girls and slum women in South India. “These pads use virgin wood pulp sheets which do not contain any Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP); thus, there is no risk of carcinogenic harmful effects or life long complications. The compostable and non-woven upper layer along with bio plastic helps the liquid to stay in the napkin. Even the packaging is compostable,” says Jaydeep.

Anandi pads are sold through various channels in the villages. The Government and some corporates too buy these pads. “As part of our pilot programme, we are selling Anandi pads to urban consumers too. We are not retailing it through shops.”

Cloth pads

Unless pads are disposed off the right way, it will neither get buried or composted and probably get dumped in the landfill. Do such pads actually address the disposal problem or sanitary waste issue?

Kathy Walkling, Founder, Eco femme, a women-led social enterprise, manufactures washable cloth pads as an alternative to disposable pads.

“Essentially a single cloth washable pad (that lasts 75 washes) equivalent to 75 single use and throw disposable sanitary napkins. Cloth pads prevent significant amounts of waste. Made from natural materials, they are healthier when cared for properly and they save money as well,” Kathy explains.

Creating Awareness

In the long run, hygiene and sustainability is posible through education. Sanitary hygiene education is still a novel term in India, has to aim at creating awareness at the grassroots level both in terms of use & disposal and also about the hazards of careless disposal of pads. Local and global ambassadors, celebrities, NGOs have to strive to leverage the step and take the message to the cross section of women.

“Many women are engaged in demonstration and the teaching and learning happens through a woman-to-woman chain,” Muruganantham elaborates.

Essentially a single cloth washable pad (that lasts 75 washes) represents the equivalent of 75 single use and throw disposable sanitary napkins being burned or tossed.

“It should be a municipal activity where administrative outfits, corporate bodies and independent institutions join hands to bring about a solution. Sanitary waste disposers should become a part and parcel of each residence and building,” Ramachandran shares his view.

Eco Femme believes in an inclusive approach. “Our goal is not to ‘break’ any taboos. We strive to engage with the cultural practices, acknowledging that they have been in place for centuries and that they are often part of the glue that binds a community together, and they often hold a lot of meaning for those who follow them. In these conversations, we hope to deconstruct ingrained cultural conditioning and empower women as change agents, by providing information and ways for them to reconnect to their embodied knowledge and voice. We work closely with our implementation partners and organisations who order non-commercial pads to make sure we are able to best meet the needs of their specific community and nurture a network of global ambassadors who help spread the message about the hazards of disposable menstrual products and the merits of trying alternatives like cloth pads and menstrual cups.”

While there are innovative and ecofriendly solutions for feminine hygiene surfacing, be it cloth or pads, when it comes to disposal, it is still an issue unless the disposal process is strictly monitored. Otherwise, all these ecofriendly solutions will get dumped like any other garbage.

Sanitary Solutions & Waste Disposal

63Mn girls lack access to toilets in India

As India celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, this year, a strategic philanthropy foundation, Dasra revealed the other side of the coin that adolescent girls who are nearly 10% of the country’s population do not have access to private toilets. In its report, the foundation observes,

“63 million out of India’s 120 million adolescent girls, lack access to a private toilet. That is more than the population of Italy, and roughly equivalent to the population of the United Kingdom.”

Almost 3,34,000 children under age five die every year due to inadequate sanitation. That is 915 children every day.

“Besides the lack of facility, the problem is the traditional, almost institutionalized, culture of misinformation and taboo-driven silence around the issue of menstrual hygiene among women and adolescent girls. For many more than 63 million, the introduction to and subsequent experience of menstrual hygiene every month is almost entirely educated by ignorance, guesswork and societal censorship.”

In order to achieve improved sanitation and hygiene for adolescent girls, Dasra recommends to adopt few strategies and approaches that are:

• View girls as end users, not beneficiaries


• Target adolescent girls to boost India’s sanitation and hygiene achievements


• Move beyond the “menstruation hypothesis”


• Engage boys and men in addressing girls’ hygiene and sanitation needs


• Build data for the sector from the ground

63Mn girls lack access to toilets in India

Food, Hygiene & Flights

The flight kitchen is like a military regiment, that rolls with rules and regulations. The stringency starts from maintaining a sterile atmosphere and thrives on functional modalities, technicalities and logistics. Precision, hygiene and sanitation play a predominant and all-encopassing role in delivering the prepared meals. Clean India Journal takes a peek.

AIR CATERES are striving to go that extra mile to move the bar up in terms of giving quality food. And yet, the variables are too many to handle. Flight food gets cooked, assembled, chilled, transported, reheated and regenerated, and hence are subjected to high altitude, pressure and less humidity requiring complete hygiene programme right from the start of the preparation.

Quality is at the heart of this service that is achieved by keeping the food hygienic, clean and free from disease causing bacteria. Speaking to Clean India Journal, VB Rajan, Chief Operating Officer, Casino Air Caterers & Flight Services (CAFS), Cochin, said, “All food contact surfaces are non-corrosive and non-toxic. All equipment in the manufacturing system are designed in a manner that facilitates easy cleaning and disinfecting. The related records are mandatorily kept. Only safe cleaning compounds and sanitizing agents are used in the company, stored separately under control and issued properly to avoid contamination of food with toxic chemicals. Effective measures are taken to exclude pests, insects and vermin from the process areas. A proper cleaning schedule is followed as detailed in the SOP.”

Raw materials are sourced locally and stored in separate cold storages for cut, cleaned and cooked stuff maintained at ambient temperatures. Work areas are segregated with colour coded bins and cutlery in order to avoid cross- contamination. Separate spec sheets indicate the amount of ingredients to be used and the order of assembling… Here below is an account of how things work in the flight kitchen of CAFS in keeping with the hygiene standards for a contamination free preparation and delivery.

Cleaning Containment in Preparation Kitchen.

The major source of contamination arises from waste generated at the time of preparation. The solid waste generated in various processing areas and from offloading is collected in big foot operated waste bins lined with polythene cover. Once the bin is full, the garbage is transferred to a store maintained at 5oC or below. The waste is collected and disposed off from the store by an external agency three times daily. Garbage disposal record is maintained. The liquid waste generated in the processing is treated in a effluent treatment plant where the water is recycled for use in house gardening.

“While all procedures are in place, it is only through constant monitoring, regular training and auditing hygienic food processing, preparation and delivery is possible.”

Waste Management System

Environmental standards are strictly followed in packing materials and food additives. A waste management system is adopted to segregate and dispose off the kitchen waste. Says A R Shine, Director, Envac Environmental Technology (P) Ltd, “The state of the art facility at Oberoi Flight Catering, T3, New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport is the most modern flight catering facility in India installed with an Envac Automated waste system. It collects waste from ware wash, dish wash and food preparation areas as well. The system is fully equipped with trash chute in benches, trash chutes located in the food prep areas, customs bonded warehouse and the conveyor systems receiving the food trays from the aircraft.”

A microbiology wing oversees the in flight prep kitchens. Samples of cooked and served meals are regularly collected and tested for quality and consistency. HACCP monitors and certifies the quality and safety regulations in the kitchens. Food safety regulations insist that wastages in preparations be destroyed and discarded.

Cleaning Schedule

“We follow a strict cleaning, monitoring and record keeping schedule. Broadly divided into two ways: To maintain cleanliness of contact surfaces, we have a daily cleaning schedule and a checklist maintained. As a routine, there is a visual check on cleanliness done at least four times during the day. On a weekly basis, the QA executive verifies the records. Besides this, the QC staff conduct swab tests to check the microbial levels of the contact surfaces and an analysis record is maintained which is again verified at the end of the week by the QA manager. A team of 25 are engaged in cleaning round the clock,” explained Rajan.

Prevent Cross Contamination

Prevention of cross-contamination includes insanitary objects to food, food packaging material, and other food contact surfaces, including utensils, gloves, and outer garments; and from raw product to cooked product.

“The entire layout of CAFS is unidirectional and ensures complete isolation of finished product from raw materials. The facility is designed for ease in cleaning, sanitation, and traffic control.“Plant grounds are in a condition that protects against contamination of food. Waste is collected in blue colour waste bins lined with black colour polythene cover and is removed from processing areas at definite intervals. Raw-product processing and cooked-product processing areas are separated. Drip or condensate does not contaminate food or packaging materials. Safety-type light fixtures are used in processing and packaging areas. Coolers, including the evaporators, are cleaned periodically. Nonfoodcontact surfaces in processing and packaging areas are cleaned daily at the end of the shift. Raw and cooked products are physically separated in coolers. Packaging materials are protected from contamination during storage.”Cleaning equipment are dedicated for each area. Production staff are given basic food sanitation training. Workers wear clean uniform, caps, mask and do not wear jewelry or other objects that might fall into the product, equipment, or containers. Workers wear disposable gloves and replace them as needed; wash their hands and gloves thoroughly and sanitize them before starting work or after each absence from their workstation; and anytime they have become soiled or contaminated clothing and personal belongings are not stored in production areas. Workers are not allowed to eat food, chew gum, drink beverages, or use tobacco in production areas. Hand cleaning and sanitizing stations are provided in each and every section.

Prevention of Microbial Contamination

“Work tables, and sinks for the preparation and handling of raw foods of animal origin are not used for preparation or handling of raw foods of vegetable origin or ready-to-eat foods, unless a documented procedure of cleaning and disinfection of machine after preparing raw foods is in place and vice-versa.

“Cutting boards for the preparation and handling of different types of foods e.g. (foods of animal origin, foods of vegetable origin or readyto- eat foods) are clearly identified by specific color or any other appropriate method and are not used for handling of other foods.

“Knives and other handling utensils are cleaned and or disinfected after each handling job. separate colour coded chopping boards / knives are used for cooked / under cooked / raw foods. Similarly separate colour coded chopping boards / knives are used for veg. and non-veg. items.”

Food handling equipment are cleaned and disinfected after each use and thereafter re-used or stored clean and dry as described in SOP (CAFSFSPR- 02, SSOP-2).

Outer packaging material like cartons, plastic bags, gunny bags etc. are decanted/removed in foodhandling area.

Prevention of Chemical Contamination

Cleaning chemicals, sanitizing agents, lubricants and pesticides are properly labeled and stored separately outside processing and packaging areas. Sanitation supervisor inspects chemical storage areas daily and inspects processing and packaging areas.

Unapproved chemicals are used in non-processing areas. Sanitation supervisor initiates correction of any potentially contaminating condition. Repairs are made as needed.

Pest Control

Pest control service is contracted to Rentokil Initial to carry out complete pest control activity in the unit under the supervision of QA Manager. The trained staff has been employed by the agency on daily basis. The Rentokil supervisor discusses the performance with QA Manager on a weekly basis. The daily service is recorded by the technician and is verified by the QA Manager.

The pest control chemicals are brought into the unit in sealed containers, cross checked with the approved pesticide list (APL) by the quality assurance representative and stored in the cupboard located outside the main building under lock and key.

As and when the fumigation is to be carried out, the required chemical is taken out and diluted as per the directions mentioned in the contract by the technician. These diluted chemicals are poured in spray pumps and these pumps are carried inside the unit.

There is a set schedule for spraying in the emptied food processing/handling area, drain holes inside and out the unit and fogging in external area.

Cleaning Raw material

“We use Ecolab cleaning solution for airline dish washing and Diversey chemicals for cleaning of food contact surfaces/ kitchen pot washing raw material. For sanitizing, we resort to steam and sodium hypochlorite solution.

While all procedures are in place, it is only through constant monitoring, regular training and auditing that hygienic food processing, preparation and delivery are possible.

Inputs from Vijayalakshmi Sridhar

 

Food, Hygiene & Flights