Green wash: Sustainable ways to clean up your laundry

Pump it up

For Kaberry, business development manager on Electrolux Professional’s commercial laundry team, the key innovation in terms of sustainability is heat pump technology. According to him, heat pump dryers are far less energy-intensive than gas or electric-vented options. “Heat pump technology saves about 65% on energy usage compared to a normally electric, vented dryer,” he says.

Electrolux Professional’s heat-pump dryers solve a number of key problems with the technology, he says. They’re much smaller than other heat pump options; and they are much quicker to heat up, cutting wash-cycle times. “Our heat-pump dryer fits into exactly the same footprint as a traditional dryer,” Kaberry says. “We’ve seen with competitor equipment, it’s installed into, say, a care home when it’s being built. But what do you do when it needs to be replaced?”

The manufacturer’s dryers have an inverter-driven compressor and an electric valve to ensure the units heat up quickly. Electrolux Professional carried out a test with some clients with a 14kg load of wet towels and it took 35 minutes to do a drying cycle in an Electrolux heat pump dryer as opposed to an hour-and-a-half in a more conventional heat pump dryer.

The supplier’s range of options in its washing machine line includes a dosing system that increases efficiency and is good for the environment, he says. “This is a separate box that attaches to our washers, next to the chemical dosing systems that dose the detergent and fabric conditioner. The machine weighs what’s inside – you might only have a 7kg cycle in a 14kg machine, and this system ensures you’re only using the water and chemicals that you need.

“With this system, you can save up to 30% on chemical costs – and it’s much better for the environment.”

The newest Electrolux Professional heat-pump product is a drying cabinet, Kaberry adds: “These go into places like fire stations, but also office blocks, where people might have cycled to work, for example.

“It’s difficult to overstate the importance of GLARE to the industry over the next couple of decades”

“You can put your kits, your cycling gear into one of these lockers, and you just press go on the outside; it has an internal moisture sensor system, so it senses when everything’s dry inside, and automatically turns itself off. I’ve done test cycles, and they’re between 35 minutes to an hour, depending on what goes in there.”

Public glare

All this is crucial, as hotels have never been more interested in laundries’ carbon emission figures – to the extent that they are now included in most tender processes. This is the thinking behind GLARE, created in collaboration between TSA and sustainable organisation collective, Green Element. According to TSA’s Stevens, hotels “particularly like the fact that even data ‘per hotel customer’ can be provided to them”.

“It’s difficult to overstate the importance of GLARE to the industry over the next couple of decades,” he adds. “It’s been designed to be useful to the entire industry, so we took time to make sure it met the needs of everyone from SMEs to the largest players. It’s also being supported by our international partners in Europe and the US, enabling a truly global level playing field in terms of recording the progress the industry makes as it continues towards meeting its net zero targets.”

Products that take this growing desire for sustainability into account are increasingly available. One option is the new ‘Workwear-to-Workwear’ apron range from Elis UK, “the first closed-loop collection made entirely from recycled materials”, according to the company’s Roberta Charlett. Each apron is manufactured using 60% recycled textiles from Elis’s own end-of-life garments and 40% recycled polyester derived from post-consumer plastic bottles.

“By combining these materials through a carefully managed process of defibration, spinning and weaving, Elis has created a durable and stylish product that reflects the industry’s shift towards circularity,” she says. “Elis’s production and service model [is also] designed to minimise environmental impact at every stage.

“A lifecycle analysis (LCA) conducted by Elis shows that the new aprons reduce carbon emissions by 60% and water usage by more than 90% compared to a standard imported apron. That’s the equivalent to avoiding 58km driven by car, and saving 40 showers’ worth of water per garment.”

And if both fabrics and laundry appliances are eco-friendly, then hospitality sites will be washing greener than ever.

Suppliers

Electrolux Professional www.electroluxprofessional.com

Elis UK uk.elis.com/en

Textile Services Association tsa-uk.org

Photo: Aleksandar Malivuk/Shutterstock