In the past two decades, scientific innovation has enabled the compaction of both powder and liquid laundry detergents. This is facilitated by taking water and fillers out of products and introducing new performance ingredients like enzymes and polymers which have a high performance with low concentrations in the formula.
These innovations are changing the products available on the market, and with it the environmental footprint of each user, and our industry.
Controlled dosing for professional use
Concentrated products are the hallmark of the professional cleaning sector and a key strength for businesses that require highly efficient cleaning performance, with very low use of resources and environmental impact. Companies optimise resources with highly concentrated products. This is essential for sustainability and is a key strength of this industry, resulting in substantially lower CO2 emissions across the life cycle of the product, from supply and manufacturing to packaging and delivery.
The industry’s state of the art dosing equipment ensures the correct amount of detergent for each application, leading to optimal performance, preventing spillage and waste and limiting contact with cleaning products. Over-dosing leads to an increased use of chemicals, water, heat and energy, whereas under-dosing means an unsatisfying result and re-cleaning which has an additional environmental burden.
Huge savings for households
For more than 20 years, A.I.S.E. has promoted the optimal use of ingredients, packaging and energy for households through a series of initiatives known as Product Resource Efficiency Programmes (PREPs). These initiatives focus on different product categories such as powder or liquid laundry detergents and have led to significant environmental savings.
With a reduction of 50% in dosage per wash, this has led to a reduction of packaging estimated to be around 35,000 tonnes. In this 20-year period, 20% more households did their laundry using an estimated 30 million tonnes less of detergent, whilst securing the same cleaning performance.
These initiatives are a key element of A.I.S.E.’s sustainability strategy aimed at minimising the environmental impact of the laundry process through optimising the sustainability profile of detergent powders, liquids and fabric conditions and promoting their sustainable production and consumption via compaction, concentration and adequate consumer information.
Compaction initiative in Romania
Citizens in Romania will benefit from the same savings as mentioned above thanks to a current industry initiative specifically addressed at heavy duty low suds powder detergents used for household laundry, which includes laundry powder detergents for the industrial and institutional sector which are sold in cash and carry markets and thus are available to consumers (even in the case they are sold in large sizes) are included in the scope of this project. More information is available from the Romanian association Rucodem.
Projects completed to date which have contributed to the savings outlined above have included the following:
- Household laundry heavy-duty and light-duty low-suds liquid detergents in EU + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland
- Household laundry detergent powders in Europe
- Household liquid fabric conditioners in Europe
- Household laundry powder detergent in Jordan
- Household laundry detergent powders in EU and EFTA countries
- Household liquid detergent EU and EFTA countries
- Household laundry detergents the Middle East and North Africa
- Household laundry detergent powders in Turkey
