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Q: What is Footprint?
A: About a year ago the team and I sat down and tried to look into a crystal ball to see what the future held. When that didn’t work we decided to throw around some ideas about what we should be doing for our customers in the future. One of those ideas was an eco friendly range of products, which has become know to us as our ‘footprint range’.
Q: What is an ECO Friendly Product?
A: It’s almost impossible to produce something without it having any effect on the environment. Everything we do from breathing to eating effects the world we live in. Therefore we felt it was important to define the term ECO Friendly and for us it means something that doesn’t adversely impact on the environment.
We have questioned and re-questioned our suppliers as to why their products could be termed eco friendly and it boils to more then just the chemical in the bottle. To get a true grasp of whether a product can be termed eco friendly you have to look at the way it was produced and how it flowed through the supply chain. We asked questions like: how the raw materials sourced? how was the production line cleaned down between batch runs? what happened to the wastage? how was it transported? how was it stored?
During our investigation we found that the government had actually done the same thing via DEFRA
please click here to view Sustainable Cleaning A guide for users of professional cleaning products
We used this as a tick list against our suppliers and as a criteria for finding the most eco friendly products.
Having toured a number of our suppliers facilities we found that Seldens had a number of pluses over other suppliers. We have listed a few of these below:
· The tank farm a massive silo system for storing chemicals which are transported in via tankers rather then plastic vats. · They have voluntarily gained ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and AISE accreditations. · They are the only chemical manufacturer to have a Bio Reactor this was a DTI duel funded project. The bacteria in it digests waste into water and carbon meaning that they do not have to dispose of waste from a wash down. · They have a purpose built facility designed to minimise the loss of heat, lighting and the use of water. · After mixing tanks have been used the excess chemical is recycled and stored for use in the next batch, which means they use less water to clear down.
For more information please click here to be taken to
What is our part in this chain?
As the end user we can make sure that we buy products in their most concentrated form. This reduces the amount of packaging and water that is being transported on our busy road networks.
We can make sure that our staff are correctly trained and the products are correctly labelled and we are using the correct dilution rates and therefore not over dosing chemicals and being wasteful.
We must make sure that we are using the right chemical for the job and applying it in the right way, so as to minimise re-works.
We can recycle boxes and packaging so that it can be reused.
These are just a few steps active steps that we can take to protect our environment. There is always more we can do and if you are interested to find out what Oxford City Supplies is doing please see our Environmental and Ethical Policy.
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Oxford City Supplies Ltd |
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P— 01865 722104 E—sales@oxfordcitysupplies.com
Unit 6 Centremead Osney Mead Ind Est Oxford OX2 0ES |