Hand sanitizers grow up fast
Personal care packaging supplier Qosmedix is a “Validated
COVID-19 Response Supplier” of Thomasnet.com, a network
of B2B buyers and industrial/commercial suppliers in North
America for essential items to combat the virus. Now an
authorized distributor of several hand sanitizer brands in the
Through key ingredient recycling,
Recycle Aerosol supports the battle against COVID-19
16 Spray August 2020
U.S., including BodyOne, GiGi, Fantasia, Zoono,
Kleantouch, Clere and Medyskin, Qosmedix
said it will add brands, hand sanitizing stations,
liquid soaps and other necessary cleaning supplies
in the upcoming months to help support store
re-openings.
In June, GOJO Industries,
manufacturer of Purell and other
sanitizers, announced the purchase of
a 325,000-square-foot facility in Maple
Heights, OH that the company will use
to manufacture and store its products.
The $25 million purchase and company
expansion is part of the Ohio Manufacturing
Alliance to Fight COVID-19. The
company has also hired additional workers
for its Ohio plants in Cuyahoga Falls and Wooster.
GOJO CEO Carey Jaros said the company is producing
twice as much product as it did before COVID-19,
and she expects demand to continue.
While many U.S. industries were
halted during the COVID-19
pandemic, our company’s
work was deemed “essential” so we
forged ahead. After Recycle Aerosol
made the requisite moves to keep
our employees and visitors safe, our
thoughts turned to considering what
unique, untapped resources we could
catalyze as part of the aerosol industry’s
battle response.
Given the
media reports of
hand sanitizer
shortages and
industry retooling
to ramp up
greater production
to meet
the vastly increased demand, we seized
upon our appropriate role.
Ethanol is a key disinfectant ingredient
in many hand sanitizers and had
been in short supply. Although fuel is
the dominant market for U.S. ethanol,
and it remains plentiful, that type of
ethanol is not pure enough to meet
U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
standards. Manufacturers of this grade
don’t take great care in removing the
impurities produced in the process
because they “burn” easily in a combustion
engine.
The particular ethanol grades needed
for hand sanitizers are “specially denatured”
(SD) grades, and are also commonly
used in numerous personal care,
cosmetics and other aerosol products
that our business routinely captures
during the recycling process. These SD
alcohol grades are “denatured” to render
them unfit for human consumption,
especially with regard to children. As a
feedstock for ethanol distillation, our
recycling byproducts are ideal because
they require less additional purification
prior to reuse in hand sanitizer products.
In order to respond to the needs of
U.S. health care workers, first responders,
police and the many other businesses
and families currently affected by
COVID-19, we have shifted production
in our plant to prioritize ethanol-containing
aerosol cans and other products.
Because our production strategy has
always been to combine like products
together to facilitate better recovery of
valued ingredients, we quickly refocused
and retooled our production to inventory
and inbound products containing
ethanol. Through our selective combination
of these unsaleable aerosol
products, we can recycle 35,000 gallons
of ethanol material weekly. After final
processing, this sustainable reclamation
process supplies enough ethanol weekly
to fill over two million personal-sized, 2
oz. bottles of 70% ethanol hand sanitizer.
Our process redefines aerosol recycling
by preserving the values of aerosol
product ingredients. We recycle each
component and return
the raw materials
back to markets for reuse. We encourage
aerosol fillers of any of the thousands of
aerosol brands that use ethanol-based
concentrates to participate with us by
reviewing and updating any inventory of
line scrap, off-spec, out-of-date, seasonal
or otherwise unsaleable ethanol-containing
products.
Because of our zero-waste approach,
we are equipped to help fulfill the immediate
need for these essential chemicals
in the fight against COVID-19, while also
providing a safe, sustainable and economical
recycling solution for aerosol waste.
Further, we can team with customers
wanting to close the loop and sustainably
source ethanol that has been partially
derived from their own recycled products
for their own production of sanitizers or
other ethanol-based products. We could
not expand the limits of recycling without
the support of our customers, for which
we are grateful. Spray
— Gary Okey, Executive VP, Certified
Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM),
Recycle Aerosol LLC, Bells, TN