Small commercial and on-premises laundries (OPL) in care homes, schools, residential centres and hotels receive very little (if any) routine technical support. Larger laundries rely heavily on their chemicals suppliers for troubleshooting and updating their processes to take advantage of the latest technology. Where is the mechanism for the startling advances of the last 15 years to be encouraged and implemented in the small laundry sector? What are they missing out on?
Radical changes in five key areas have enabled massive improvements in quality, turnover and operating costs since 2010. This month we look at how the large contract launderers and textile rental operators have seized the opportunities now available and what the small laundry sector needs to do to catch up.
Disinfection
Around 2010, the UK’s National Health Service changed its specification for disinfection requirement for healthcare textiles from implied thermal disinfection to allowing alternative methods, providing these were backed up by justified assurance that disinfection was actually being achieved. This opened the way for low temperature disinfection agents in the wash chemistry, and assurance systems that met the requirements of the European Norme and international standard, BS EN ISO 14065:2016. Ability to meet this standard has become a key entry requirement into the UK healthcare market. Interestingly, it was large private sector firms which led this transition, enabling them (and the NHS) to achieve significant reductions in carbon footprint and operating costs. These advantages have not yet been replicated in the small laundry and on-premises laundry sectors, partly because of the expertise needed to implement the EN 14065 standard in a cost-effective way.
Any small laundry processing small lots for doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, pharmacies, chiropodists and so on are probably already required to disinfect both uniforms and flatwork. This requirement could well extend to small hotels and guesthouses in the future. Anyone still heating these washes up to 71C and holding this for 3 minutes plus mixing time is almost certainly wasting energy, profit and processing time. There are now proven disinfectants which require only 40C and now is the time to make the switch and ozone has been successfully in use in the care sector for many years. If a customer asks for proof of disinfection, or compliance with EN14065, get a copy of the standard and read it. It is reasonably intelligible, as standards go. You will need written procedures, a simple mechanism for checking in-house on say a weekly basis that disinfection is effective and more thorough accurate and checks on a quarterly basis and annual certification. None of this is likely to be prohibitively expensive or difficult. Once you have certification, you can use this as a sales aid, both for healthcare customers (who should definitely require it) and for hospitality customers (who really ought to require it).
Textile life
Large rental laundries, operating with pool stocks of just a few classifications, have long recognised the need to manage textile life and have led the way with either well controlled use of sodium hypochlorite or transition to oxygen bleaches. This has reduced significantly the cost of textile injections into each pool, causing quite a few surprises. Modern wash processes are designed with progressive chemical damage low enough to permit at least 200 wash and use cycles, and some careful launderers have achieved between 300 and 400. Cotton rich textiles (30:70 polyester/ cotton) have an even higher capability. So why do so many achieve only in the range 90 – 120 cycles?
One reason for poor textile life is the continued misuse of sodium hypochlorite bleach, which causes accelerated rotting of cotton fibres if used at the wrong concentration (more than 3ml per kg of dry textiles at 16% concentration) or too high a temperature (keep this below 60C, but the lower the better). Launderers who switch to an oxygen bleach often point out that it is not as effective on protein stains as sodium hypochlorite. This is quite true, but to remove protein stains with hypochlorite requires a strong dose, which is the cause of a great deal of unnecessary chemical damage and short textile life. Fatty proteins require the right emulsifier to remove and solubilise them, especially soiling such as fish oil or chicken fat on cotton rich. Oily proteins are strongly attracted to the polyester fibres in cotton rich and they need the right emulsifier. One that is designed to take mineral oil off polycotton overalls will not work on food fats, although skilfully designed blends of different emulsifiers (able to tackle mixtures of widely differing oils and fats) are now available.
Low energy washing
The change in permitted methods for disinfection of healthcare has taken place right across Europe and it is this which has opened the door for low temperature detergent systems. High temperature washing with plenty of alkali to saponify fats has worked well for over 100 years, but this is usually more costly; it takes time for the warm-up, and it absorbs valuable heat energy which is rapidly becoming unaffordable. Modern emulsifiers and blends of these make the old high temperature, high alkali systems essentially obsolete, because these work at low temperatures without excessive alkali (helped sometimes by activators developed to accelerate low temperature effectiveness).
Low temperature washing has been one of the prime movers in the steady reduction of unit energy consumption (measured in kWh per kg dry weight of textiles) in the modern laundry. In the UK, the large laundry sector has reduced energy use by over 25% over a five-year period and this is still continuing. Market leaders are driving consumption below 1.0 kWh/kg textiles, an achievement considered beyond us only a few years ago.
Low energy ironing
Low temperature washing has been the main driver over the last 12 months, and this has rapidly become the norm to stand any chance of achieving acceptable prices and margins. Interest is now moving to cost-effective ironing and tumble drying. Minimum cost, high productivity ironing relies on two key objectives: to keep the ironer fed with sufficient work to keep it running continuously, aside from breaks, and to seek to consistently maximise bed coverage. These are now recognised as more important than trying to make the ironer run faster and still get the work dry (which usually raises quality issues and is difficult to maintain long term). Achieving continuous running means a scheduling system that keeps at least one batch ahead, without forming queues (which allow the work to dry and brown). It also means maintaining low and consistent moisture contents, with monitoring and control of time at pressure in the membrane press on CBTW lines (an area which has been sadly neglected in many plants) or optimising extraction spin speed and time. Shrewd operators have recognised the importance of maintaining maximum extraction of water vapour (by regular monitoring and optimisation of vacuum suction across every bed) and of achieving uniform rollto- bed contact and pressure (by avoiding over-pressure and distortion of the springing).
Low energy tumble drying
The two key factors which have driven thermal efficiency of the tumble dryer have been a ruthless focus on consistency of load weights (with correct allowances now being made for the average moisture content of used towels), and the use of automatic terminators at 2% – 5% residual moisture content (to eliminate the harshness and greying formerly caused by regular over-drying). When these are coupled with monitoring and optimisation of de-watering in the membrane press or washer extractor, the results in whiteness, softness, energy efficiency and productivity have been remarkable. For the first time ever, we have heard reports of customers ringing the laundry praising the change in towel processing – what an impact!
Laundry management
All this does not come for free! It demands changes at the top. Laundry supervisors are generally very proficient at production planning and keeping everyone on their toes. They are less effective at making the checks needed to keep ironers at their maximum efficiency, such as monitoring and optimising time at pressure in the membrane press, or measuring and optimising moisture retention from the washer extractor. The best person to keep on top of these is probably the laundry engineering team, but this is frequently only one person in a small laundry and the post might not exist at all!
Care home OPLs and cruise liner laundries
Perhaps the most important opportunity facing care homes and cruise liners right now is the chance offered by low temperature washing to introduce disinfection in every wash. Care homes in the UK, amazingly, face no legal requirement to routinely disinfect each wash load but are covered in HTM01- 04. A few do use implied thermal disinfection and many use ozone disinfection, both of which are effective but this needs checking regularly. Care homes that rely on only a four-hour shift for laundry staff find it difficult to fit all the work into the time available and so use main wash temperatures much lower than 65C or 71C. This not only saves staff costs and processing time, but it also minimises energy consumption; both are particularly valuable, especially as many care home washers use electric heating elements, which are slow and expensive to run. The effect of poor disinfection has been failure to prevent cross infection of flu bugs, Covid, C diff. and even the common cold. Many cruise liners also fail to disinfect in every wash, even for pillowcases, towels and table napkins and even during infection outbreaks such as of Norovirus and Covid.
Now is the time to put this right with no significant cost increases apart from the necessary chemistry involved.
Conclusion
This is where the leadership of the laundry management comes in. To achieve the major advances described for the large laundry has meant engineering teams who are trained to take process optimisation in their stride, with frequent checks and monitoring systems. In the largest rental laundries working 24/7, there are teams of engineers on duty with clear briefs from either the Chief Engineer or perhaps from the Production Manager. We now need one person in each small establishment able to understand the opportunities described in this article, with the leadership skills needed to sell these concepts, both to the decision makers on the Board and the team on the laundry floor. The changes needed will not happen by themselves and it is not enough simply to give the engineer or manager a copy of this article and say: “Get on with it!”. You will need someone with the ability to inspire the entire team with the new direction of travel and the enthusiasm to get to the destination we have outlined.
