Many people get a kick out of the smell of chlorine. Why? Because they associate it with fresh and clean. For example, in the toilet of a gas station along the highway. “It may smell clean, but it doesn’t benefit you at all.” Speaking is Gert van den Bosch, account manager at Spectro.
A toilet bowl is full of contamination, of course. From human excrement, of course, but also from lime deposits. Gert: “You remove limescale with cleaning agents that contain an acid: descalers. Chlorine contains no acids, so it doesn’t help against limescale. It does remove skid marks, but that can be done with water alone. To remove limescale, you must use descalers.”
Camouflage
Yet Gert often sees it go wrong. “In the household, many people eagerly reach for a can of chlorine. And do they outsource the cleaning? Then the cleaning lady does spray a load of chlorine down the toilet. That may bleach the stubborn soiling, but it doesn’t get the toilet clean. Actually, chlorine is a camouflage agent. A professional cleaner will never touch a can of chlorine.”
Sanitary cleaning
Water hardness is still high in some parts of the Netherlands. Water companies are working hard to reduce water hardness. From about 2 German hardness, lime can already start to adhere. Water will not get that low. Therefore, we cannot easily avoid periodic descaling. If you want to clean a toilet you need daily sanitary cleaners. You have these in different types from slightly acidic, with bacterial cultures to neutral. In our Ecodos line you also have sanitary cleaners with EU Ecolabel. With these products you clean a toilet really well, not spotlessly clean. Unfortunately, many people don’t know that. As a result, they just do whatever.”
“We have the right cleaning product for every toilet and every target group”
Appropriate remedy
A toilet is a toilet. But its users can differ. Gert: “Brake tracks are almost the same everywhere. But at a metal construction company, for example, production workers also bring a lot of dust and metal shavings with them. That requires a specific sanitary cleaner. At Spectro we have a suitable cleaner for every toilet and for every target group: from dosage systems for daily sanitary cleaning to products based on light acids and bacteria for periodic descaling. But so never thick bleach.”