tackling trouble areas The Free-pour Days Are Coming To An End Chemical dilution control systems help save time, money and the environment. By: Mike Sawchuk H Historically, most cleaning professionals had two options when using chemicals: Ready-to-use (RTU) chemicals that typically come in quarts or gallons or employ the “free-pour” system with concentrated chemicals. That’s when users mix some chemical with some water and “hope for the best” — praying they mixed it properly for the cleaning task at hand. Complicating the problem, end-users often over dilute, believing more is bet-ter, which is often not true and simply increases costs. Then, a decade or more ago, some large facilities began installing chemical dilution and dispensing systems. These facilities typically use huge amounts of cleaning chemicals. Their managers found that, by installing dispensing systems, they were able to lower costs, improve chemical inventory control and lower potential exposure liability. Instead of having several quarts and gallons of different chemicals in scores of different janitorial closets, they were able to limit the containers of chemicals. Indeed, interest in dilution control and dispensing systems took a big step forward in the past few years when users realized the systems could play a big role in promot-ing sustainability through green cleaning. With a dispensing system, dilution is accurate every time — just enough chemi-cal is dispensed to perform the cleaning task without waste or excess, which could impact the health of the worker. This is not typically the case when chemicals are “free poured” into sprayers, buckets and other cleaning tools. Additionally, with heavily concentrated cleaning chemicals, packaging needs are reduced, as is the fuel necessary for trans-porting goods to the end-user. Further, the concentrates are usually packaged in a “closed system” that helps prevent off-gassing, which can negatively impact indoor air quality. Now, with the downturn in the economy and the greater concerns for controlling cleaning costs, the pros and cons of vari-ous dilution control and dispensing sys-tems are being revisited. This time, the systems’ ability to help reduce cleaning costs is viewed as one of their primary benefits to building service contractors and facility managers. Unit Costs Large facilities were the first to realize the potential economic benefits of chemical dilution control and dispensing systems, and there was a key reason they were often the only ones using the systems: Costs. Early systems tended to be large and came with prohibitive plumbing and mount-ing requirements. Image courtesy of Enviro-Solutions Ltd. With a dilution control system, one needn’t worry about calculating proper mixing ratios, as it is done automatically. 36 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • March 2011
CMM – Archives Mar 2011: 36
