Sustainability has a long-term impact on our environment and the generations to come. As stakeholders of the laundry industry, it falls upon the industry players and service providers to take responsibility to give time to nature to recreate itself by limiting the use of natural resources. In a high level panel discussion during LaundrexNet knowledge sharing session held in January 2016, eminent speakers discussed sustainability in laundry. Excerpts:
The Panel Members: Uwe Stahl, Managing Director-Stahl, Germany; Timothy R. Nymberg, Vice President-APAC; Vijay Rodda, Laundry Consultant and Sumeet Verma, Managing Director-Buzil Rossari Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai.
Sustainability in general, depends on two factors – cost and its impact on the society and stakeholders. Cost has various aspects, including primary expenses such as chemicals, water, energy, fuel, salary and machinery. It also involves secondary expenses which include telephone, computer, paper work, packaging and logistics. While, these are some of the expenses that can be moderated and if done so, without compromising on the quality, sustainability increases. Both factors must commensurate with each other for a sustainable business model in any field.
There are five main stakeholders for any industry, including laundry customer or guest, shareholder, staff, supply chain and the society. Society, specifically is affected by a range of factors like pollution (land, air, water and noise) besides usage of resources whether renewable or non-renewable. These factors could lead to problems for any business.
Role of machinery
Speaking of expenses incurred in procuring machines, Uwe Stahl opines that “procurement is one-time investment and it is the operational cost that affects sustainability in terms of water usage, servicing, compatibility of different kind of clothes and chemicals, damage to laundry, energy consumption and emerging pollutants impacting health of the workers.”
In fact, the more one invests in the set-up, the more it adds to sustainability. Efficient use of resources, improves the quality of life. “It is not about a chemical or equipment, it is all about balancing the laundry operations. Adequate dosing and dispensing coupled with uninterrupted operations, minimum rewashing and a balance of the chemistry involved play a significant role in sustainability,” adds Timothy.
Explaining sustainability in terms of laundry, Sumeet Verma says, “Sustainability is all about using the resources — water, chemical and energy — efficiently to save the environment. I use an analogy for laundry that machine is the body, dispensing is the art and chemical is the blood. We should have benchmarks defined for each and every procedure and equipment involved. If all these benchmarks are within parameters, the cost will automatically come down. Water quality, mechanical action, chemical dilution, time and temperature are the five operational parameters and are the key to achieve sustainability goals for any small or large laundry establishment.”
From ecological perspective, Sumeet prefers liquid based chemicals over powders, as they all have phosphate base that tend to pollute the environment. “So when we speak about sustainability, it is not just the cost but the entire ecosystem that needs to be considered. Powders also take time to dissolve in water unlike liquids. Efficient dosing programme can also help in sustainability.”
Sorting linen
Timothy elaborates, “Sorting of laundry is very important along with a tailor-made dosing system for classified laundry besides adequate and optimised usage of all resources. With powders, the product is dependent on manual operations. Any delay from the operator’s end may put extra load on the machine, causing more wear and tear to the parts. Moreover, powder-based chemicals do not rinse out easily, that’s why liquid dispensing is more efficient and accurate as compared to the powder.”
Q&A Session
“We face the issue of stain removal of dotted spots on cloths, which can be taken care of in case of white clothes but it is not easy to get rid of gutka or ball pen ink stains from coloured clothes. We cannot use harsh chemicals on coloured clothes as they may lose the original colour.”
– Chandrakant Kadam, Paris Laundry, Pune“In case of gutka and other food stains you may use Dry Ethanol Amine (DEA) treatment. In case of ball pen spots that tend to spread on application of chemicals, we need to remove the stain in two steps, as the ink contains wax and colour. First, we need to remove wax by putting a rough quick absorbing cloth below the spot to avoid spreading of stain and then use another chemical like DEA to remove the stain. It is effective in coloured laundry too.”
– Vijay Rodda“We are facing a problem in handling the rubber supported curtains, as the rubber part becomes sticky after application of chemicals. How to resolve this problem?”
— Amrut Shah, WashINC, Mumbai.“Rubber tends to react with alkaline substances and if the wet wash medium pH is above 10 then the rubber becomes sticky. So dry cleaning is best option for such kind of laundry. But if you are using wet wash avoid any detergent, boosters or additives that may raise the pH beyond 10. Use special detergents or neutral detergents to wash rubber support laundry.”
– Sumeet Verma“What are the existing laws for laundry waste disposal in India? Do we have as stringent norms here as in western countries?”
“In India, the pollution control board has set norms for wastewater and effluent treatment and conducts regular checks and audits for laundry units. All the laundry shops and units need to comply with the norms to continue with their certification to run the business. And the body is trying hard to reduce the usage of PERC in laundries, which is a hazardous chemical. Our environmental standards are continuously being revised to check the use of PERC.
In foreign countries, the regulations are very strict and the sector is governed by specific agencies. In India, the norms are not equally strict in the absence of a dedicated governing body to look after the laundry sector, but gradually the pollution control bodies are upgrading the regulations.
In the US, serious efforts are being taken to wipe out usage of PERC in laundry business, which is considered the first ha
nd choice for dry cleaning. Brazil has reduced the utilisation of PERC from 100% to 5% and Japan is evolving in that direction.
What is the scenario of the Indian laundry sector, with respect to sustainability?
If we map the laundry across India, we are in a nascent stage. Most of the laundry sector has a long way to go, as very few people working on a good mechanised system; very few facilities are equipped with a high quality dosing system and very less percentage of operators are using liquid laundry detergent.
[box type=”shadow” ]Colour Bleeding
How to control colour bleeding of cloths in laundry?
“Ideally, any properly designed garment should not bleed but in practice we see about 3-4% of the entire batch leave colour in the process. So we must check each cloth before putting into machine and applying chemical treatment. You need to wash such garments separately and bill the extra charges to the customer.”
– Vijay Rodda[/box]