With a market value of several hundred million pounds a year in the U.K, and with hundreds of thousands of people using institutional hygiene chemicals in the work place each day, does it not make sense to discuss and debate topical issues surrounding and impacting on our industry and the consumer? This blog is designed to stimulate manufacturer/consumer debate. Hot topics will include subjects such as “Is Green Good?” and how simply putting natural imagery on marketing materials and packaging is not good enough and is misleading for consumers.

We will look into the burning issue of packaging waste at the consumer end, and see how manufacturer and consumer can work together to re-use and recycle empty chemical containers. We will also look at how certain pieces of legislation just simply fight against each other. For example, current manual handling regulations are making people cautious about lifting 20lt containers, which is forcing manufacturers to use smaller flasks. All this does however, is to create more packaging waste, cause problems with landfill and flies in the face of the Packaging Waste Directive.

We will look at the merits of the recent changes to the environmental hazard classification of products under the Dangerous Preparations Directive. Certain products previously manufactured and sold for years will have to put a dead fish and a dead tree on a product label. We will discuss the impact of this alarming imagery on products which are essentially designed to kill germs which cause illness or death to humans.

We will poke holes in a whole raft of E.U legislation, none more so than The Biocidal Products Directive (BPD). The E.U wants chemicals to be treated in the same way as pesticides and under (BPD) all products - that meet the definition of a biocide - that are marketed within Europe must be registered with a national authority. The cost of each product registration is immense. The resitration fees are so ridiculous, that this initiative can only benefit the multi-national. One wonders what type, length and style the lobbying takes place in Brussels.

It will be illegal to market a biocidal product within the E.U that has not been registered. However, you can still make and supply the product, but cannot claim it to be biodical – therefore “Why have the legislation in the first place?” In addition part of the Detergents Directive II, which should come into force in 2009, looks at reducing the use of phosphates in cleaning products. One wonders why the trillion € agriculture industry and the gargantuan use of phosphates in fertilisers have not been tackled head on first –when our industry accounts for a very small % of phosphate use, but it is easier to tackle.

Finally we will discuss the importance of branding, brand positioning and marketing. Is there any are real benefit to the consumer of bringing retail products into the professional arena.

We hope that you will participate – if you have anything you wish to put to us, before, during and after our articles being posted, please send your contribution and we will put it online.