When it comes to sustainability, GOJO, manufacturer of PURELL® hand and surface products, has always taken responsibility. Since our foundation 75 years ago, we have made great efforts to act in an environmentally friendly and resource-saving way and have already achieved many goals. But that is not enough for us. After every milestone we have reached, we set ourselves even greater sustainability goals. Lately, we have achieved immense successes in reducing waste.
Sustainability: GOJO takes responsibility
Our world and our climate are changing at a worrying pace. As a worldwide leading manufacturer of hygiene solutions, we are aware of our responsibility in climate protection and have already taken numerous measures to protect our environment.
For example, we have reduced the Co2 emissions caused by heating processes in the manufacturing of our hygiene products by 46 percent since 2010. To achieve this, we modified our formulations so that we can produce our hygiene products at lower temperatures.
Overcoming current challenges
Then the year 2020 came and confronted us with new immense challenges. The demand for hygiene solutions increased so drastically that we had to ramp up our production capacities. The top priority was to protect the health of as many people as possible with our products. GOJO did everything in its power to meet the exponentially rising demand for PURELL sanitisers, soaps, wipes and surface sprays.
In this context, a crucial question arose: Will it be possible to increase production without losing sight of our sustainability goals? The answer: We found good solutions and invested, among other things, in new, high-quality injection moulds with which we process molten plastic.
New processes in plastics moulding
With the new moulds, we use significantly less plastic. Just replacing a single injection mould saves an estimated 75,000 pounds of waste each year. That's roughly the equivalent of 2.5 rubbish trucks. Of course we don’t have just one injection mould - we use far more than 1300 of them. We haven't been able to replace them all yet, but we're working on it.
The new moulds have already been put to good use improving the refill packs of our dispenser systems of the ES8 series. The transparent refill packs have a plastic collar with which they can be snapped into a dispenser. These cuffs are manufactured by injection moulding. By replacing the mould in question, we were able to significantly reduce plastic while saving valuable energy.
Reduction of battery waste
Let’s stay for a moment with our ES8 dispenser systems. The manual version does not require batteries, which makes it the most sustainable option. But there is also a variant for touchless hand disinfection, where a sensor automatically dispenses the right amount of hand disinfectant onto the palm. Many consumers prefer touchless systems.This way, they do not have to touch a dispenser that has already been touched by many other people before.
The minus side: these systems run on large batteries, which had to be replaced on suspicion in the past. Often this happened far too often and increased the amount of waste. But we have found a solution for this. Each ES8 refill pack comes with an integrated button cell battery. The life of the battery is exactly matched to the size of the refill pack and lasts until it is used up.
Saving important resources has top priority
This makes unnecessary battery changes on spec unnecessary. After use, the batteries can be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner. So PURELL ES8 system reduces battery waste by 68 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent compared to other non-contact systems.
These examples show the active role GOJO takes in reducing waste and saving valuable raw materials. And you can be sure of one thing: you will hear about many more sustainability successes in the future. Currently, we are already working diligently on new strategies. After all, GOJO's goal is to save lives and improve the lives of all. And this includes taking care of our environment. Because we only have one earth.
