Cleaning manufacturing equipment ecologically

However, there were hardly any on cleaning in an ecological way. The main themes which are actually worrying the European cosmetic producers are (in no particular order): REACH, animal testing, parabens, GMOs and the ubiquitous question, ‘is it compliable with Ecocert?’ It looks like a random collection of unrelated elements, but ultimately these themes are related to ecological cleaning, even if this is not immediately apparent. First of all, we have to understand what the term ‘ecological’ stands for; what exactly is ecological cleaning? There are countless meanings and even more opinions to be found on that. The Free Online Dictionary describes the term as: ‘tending to benefit or cause minimal damage to the environment’, as do most of the dictionaries around. Most probably this is also the most common definition of the term, even though it remains rather vague and people will struggle to explain it. I am quite sure that if one asked Ecocert, even they would have to scratch their heads. I developed my own characterisation in the course of my career as a product developer and concept manager, which started in 1972. Not that I explicitly wanted my own definition, but I was dissatisfied with the ones I found; they did not touch the essence of the subject and at the same time they were not sufficiently objective. ‘The environment’ as a single entity does not exist; what is beneficial to a desert is not necessarily so for the pampas, and vice versa. And ‘cause minimal damage’ can be interpreted in many kinds of ways, depending on whether you speak to the manager of a nuclear power plant or to a gardener. What I eventually came up with is: ‘A substance or a process which fits into the logic of the ecosystems, can be called ecological’.

The ecosystems

Central to this characterisation are the ecosystems. There are many different ones on our planet - water, air, land, plants, animals - all of them have their own logic and the interaction between them follows its own logic as well. Think about how the Gulf Stream moves between warm and cold zones on the planet. When we learn to slip into these logics even before we start developing anything, we have a powerful guide at our disposal to make choices on raw materials, ingredients and processes and to build a product or service that is itself in the full sense, ‘ecological’: it fits into the logic of the ecosystems from cradle to grave, or even from cradle to cradle. I take it for granted that professionals know that the largest part of actual, carbon-based ingredients for industrial cleaners come from fossil sources (mainly mineral oil and derivatives). That goes as well for the cleaners used to clean equipment in the cosmetics industry. The problems with those sources are multiple: they are running out of stock and cannot be replenished, and many of these compounds cause a lot of trouble down the line, as well at use as in the waste phase. More often than not they feature an unacceptable aquatic toxicity and very bad biodegradation behaviour, with lots of stable leftovers afterwards. The situation is far worse than with household cleaners, as the detergent legislation that has been implemented throughout the EU (and to some extent on a global scale) is not yet compulsory for industrial cleaners. Cradle to grave (C2G) and cradle to cradle (C2C) are principles which have been extensively developed by the German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American architect, Bill McDonough. Cradle to grave means that you look on a voluntary basis at and take responsibility for the whole life cycle of a product or service, from the sourcing of raw materials down to the ultimate degradation and everything in between. This is more than just your strict legal responsibility, which always lags behind reality. Cradle to cradle means that you go even further. When designing your product or service you ensure that the ingredients and materials can be reused for a second (third, fourth, ...) time at their life’s end, or become part of a different product or service. It is obvious that when this is done on a large scale – especially with C2C – the material flows on the planet, including the generation of virgin material, could be dramatically slowed down. There would be more material available to fulfil the needs of an ever-growing world population. It is equally obvious that C2C is not possible with cosmetics, cleaners or similar applications. These are products (or services) which are destroyed when applied, just as food is. However, when such products are designed along C2G principles, they disappear without a trace left in the material flow from which they were extracted. These few examples can give a taste of what is meant by ‘working with the ecosystems’ instead of working against them, as we do currently.