Keeping it clean

How have things changed over the past five years in the laundry industry?

Mohammed: There are now a variety of washing methods that can be used; some of these methods are used for domestic washing purposes while others are only intended for commercial cleaning institutions. However, the basic washing principles are the same regardless of the washing methods:

• Traditional washing where water and detergents are used in a washer extractor.

"The way you treat your staff is the key."

• Wet-cleaning is an innovative supplement to dry-cleaning where the garments are washed using water as the solvent and special detergents and additives.

• Dry-cleaning is a common washing method used for special linen which is sensitive to water such as wool and silk. This washing method uses organic solvents in a dry-cleaning machine.

• Liquid CO2 clean is a new and still not yet fully developed washing method. The liquid CO2 serves as an entirely recyclable solvent.

There has also been a change in the equipment that we use, and with the high speed in the technology nowadays the equipment used in the laundry industry is more efficient and makes our job better and easier. Today there are fully computerised laundry systems, which didn't exist before.

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Gnanaprajasam: A significant development can be seen in the methods of washing; in the past, detergent is put into machines using the manual dosage system.

Today, the detergent is replaced by a liquid chemical, which uses an auto-pumping dispenser.

This new development helps greatly with maintaining the inventory of chemical more effectively, and allows me to plan and order accordingly - eliminating wastage. In addition, time is better utilised now as well as the auto-pumping dispenser is efficient and I have an extra person to handle other jobs.

Dizon: We are up-to-date with modern equipment. Therefore the task has become easier and the product has become very refined.

Bakhsh: Consistent change in technology has made everyone's life easy, as it resulted in improvement of guest services and guest satisfaction. Also, it helped us reduce manpower and provide a superior quality service or more production. Our newly purchased machine is computerised where everything is controlled by the computer.

Kapoor: The laundry industry has changed drastically in the past five years. With modern technology, equipment is more productive than before, needs less manpower, and uses less solvent and cleaning agents than before. You can programme the machines [now] as per your washing requirements.

What one improvement to the laundry industry would make your job easier?

Mohammed: What would make our job easier would be smaller shaped machines, with powerful functions, that do not take up a lot of space.

Gnanaprajasam: Ideally, it would be a tunnel washer - this huge machine can wash and dry up to 350kg of linen per hour. In addition, there is also the double buck shirt presser, which can skip up to three actual pressing steps - saving time and manpower.

Barretto: With the greatly improved equipment available these days, along with better quality chemicals in the market, things are very positive now. As mentioned earlier, perhaps more understanding from our colleagues will make my job easier.

Dizon: New machines with improved technologies are much easier to operate. They become better with time. So the better the technology on those machines, and the less they break down, the easier and the faster the job gets done.

Bakhsh: Installation of modern machines and equipments would make one's life easy and would reduce the cost of operation of the department significantly.

Have you implemented any environmentally friendly initiatives in your workplace? If so, have you faced any challenges introducing them?

Mohammed: Thinking of the environment is something that everyone should do regardless of which department or industry they work in. We are thinking of the environment in everything that we do, for example we always make sure that we don't over consume water and the energy used.

It is also important to only use environmentally friendly detergents that can be used at lower water temperatures and so do not consume too much energy. We also use an economical drying process which operates by residual control feature. This feature ensures both an economically and an ecologically sound drying process.

Gnanaprajasam: In our hotel, we have an initiative called the ‘Sheraton Green' programme. It's a worldwide initiative undertaken by the Sheraton brand and was implemented in the guest rooms.

This programme offers our hotel guests the choice to change or keep their used linen during their stay at the hotel - thus saving on the usage of chemicals and water. We also constantly review our daily work processes to find new ways of making them more environmentally friendly.

Barretto: We now use liquid chemicals rather than powders, which are much more environmentally friendly, and of course much safer for the people working with them.

We also have recently purchased new washing machines, which have a much greater selection of programmes available. This gives us the flexibility to amend the work process based on the type of load. We look at things like reducing the number of rinses, for example, if the soiling level is light - of course, it helps to save water.

Dizon: We recycle paper and cartons, and we use baskets for clean clothes. We give old linen to charity, and use less harmful cleaning materials. We cut down on the use of plastic bags; we put several clean items together. Laundry hangers left by hotel guests are reused to hang hundreds of staff uniforms. However, we use new hangers for our hotel guests.

Bakhsh: Yes, we do have some initiatives in place. A major one is the chemicals that we are using in the laundry, which are very environmentally friendly chemicals.

Also, we do have some Marriott's programmes in place in the guest rooms like ‘Linen Reuse' and ‘Towel Reuse' where we can minimise the use of chemicals in the laundry, saving water, and electricity.

Marriott as a company has always committed to care about the environment, and are undertaking practices that preserve our natural resources.