Sustaining our industry

The environment is a topic that must raise mixed feelings within the textile care industry.

At times and in certain areas of the world, particularly of the USA, the legislators may seem over zealous in their approach to an extent where we feel a need to defend our livelihoods.

However, despite these extremes, no-one can afford to be unaware of the need to protect resources and use them as efficiently as possible. Only by doing so can we counter both the detrimental effects on our world and the rising costs to our businesses.

So a positive approach to environmental matters is needed and educating both management and employees in the most environmentally sustainable practices must be high priority and a duty of all concerned with the industrys and its long term future.

All praise therefore to the Leonardo project, an EU-funded training initiative aimed at improving both the laundry industry’s awareness and practice of sustainable methods. Led by the German research institute wfk, a group of nine partners, including suppliers Christeyns and Kannegiesser, educational, testing bodies, and trade associations across Europe, is working to put together a training programme covering all aspects of sustainability in the laundry.

Six separate modules will look at such topics as use of water; machine technology; washing processes; energy and detergents; water and energy recycling; the effects of contaminants and methods of improving sustainability.

A fuller report on the project can be found by visiting the live news section of www.laundryandcleaningnews.com.

The project is due for completion by September this year. Public workshops have already been held in Brussels, Vlotho Germany, and Bradford.

But the partners realise that for the project to work effectively it must be widely available and accessible. So the various modules are being reworked into powerpoint presentations that will be available via the internet.

Laundry and Cleaning News will make efforts to keep readers and website visitors aware of the project’s progress, and I urge all concerned with the laundry industry to keep in touch with such initiatives and to make full use of these training aids to educate both managers and operators in sustainable practices.

This is the positive approach to environmental concern, one that can only prove beneficial in the long term.

Janet Taylor, – jtaylor@wilmington.co.uk