Granules instead of liquid cleaner (conversion)

Lots of wood and floor-to-ceiling windows
REHAB Basel is a highly specialised clinic for neurorehabilitation and paraplegiology. Here, people recover after brain injuries or spinal cord paralysis and find their way back to life. Architecturally, REHAB Basel supports recovery through a calm, welcoming, and nature-inspired atmosphere with floor-to-ceiling windows, bright, warm wood tones, and a green park with a therapeutic animal garden. While this environment is very healing for patients, it presents significant challenges for the cleaning team—especially due to the high proportion of wood and glass used. «The delicate parquet flooring requires the utmost care in selecting cleaning products and applying cleaning methods. Additionally, cleaning our glass façades and floor-to-ceiling windows is very time-consuming,» summarises Anna Maria Briatico the cleaning challenges.

A seven-point list of requirements
The demands on the new cleaning product were high: it had to be environmentally friendly, safe, easy to dose, efficient, and both powerful in cleaning and gentle on materials. «In addition, our storage space is very limited, so I was looking for a space-saving solution,» completes Anna Maria Briatico the list of requirements. The solution: granular cleaner (Wetrok Granuline). The water-free cleaning granules not only meet all seven requirements but also simplify processes from delivery to disposal.

Small plastic box instead of a large tower of canisters
With granular cleaning, only the active ingredient is transported—the granulate—which is not available at the destination. «Since liquid cleaners consist of about 80 per cent water, this saves us from transporting huge amounts of water—and we don’t need to store it either,» explains Anna Maria Briatico enthusiastically. The ecological progress through introducing Wetrok Granuline sparked significant interest even at the management level. In one meeting, Anna Maria Briatico visually demonstrated to the executives the substantial resource savings enabled by Granuline: she built a huge tower of cleaning product canisters and placed a small plastic box filled with granule sachets next to it. «With the contents of this small plastic box, we clean an entire floor with 40 rooms for a whole week—previously, we needed this entire tower of liquid cleaner canisters,» she dramatically contrasted the two options. After that, the switch to granular cleaners was decided.

Clean surfaces without aerosol emissions
Previously, surfaces such as tables or therapy equipment were cleaned using various sprays. The major drawback: released aerosols—an unhealthy solution for the respiratory system. The cleaning manager is pleased that this scenario is now a thing of the past. Her team now cleans all surfaces with a single cleaning product: Wetrok Granusurf. It is suitable for bed assist handles, wooden door frames, and windows. The process is simple: the cleaner fills a foam bottle with water up to the mark, adds the granulate (pre-dosed single sachets)—and the cleaning solution is ready. After a short shake, flowing foam comes out of the bottle, which the cleaner applies to a microfiber cloth. This method completely eliminates vapours—for the well-being of both staff and patients.

One granulate sachet for one toilet bowl
Air quality was also an issue in sanitary cleaning. Previously, maintenance cleaning in wet rooms was done using pre-prepared cloths in the washing machine, and toilet cleaning was done with concentrate. «The strongly acidic cleaner always left a sharp smell in the wet rooms,» explains Anna Maria Briatico. Since switching to granulate, this is no longer the case. Sinks, faucets, and showers are now cleaned with Granusan (maintenance cleaning) or Granusan forte (intermediate cleaning). Additionally, Granubowl is used for the deep cleaning of toilets. For this, the cleaning staff pours a pre-dosed granulate sachet into the toilet, foams it up with water—and the ultra-strong cleaning solution is ready. «The transparent one-sachet-one-application principle not only makes the staff more independent and confident but also saves us supervisors a lot of time previously spent on preparation and control,» reports the cleaning manager happily.

Granulate floor cleaner – suitable for both machine and manual use
Sealed parquet accounts for the largest floor area at REHAB Basel. In addition, there are concrete, rubber, and epoxy resin surfaces. A particular challenge lies in the numerous, almost flowing transitions from wooden to elastic floor coverings. Since the switch, it is a great advantage that a single granulate cleaning product is used for all floor types. This effectively prevents material damage. In patient rooms, floors are wet-mopped with pre-moistened mops. The cleaning staff place the mops in a box and pour over a granulate-water mixture. After a short dwell time, a fresh mop is ready for each room. For floors in corridors, a scrubber-dryer machine is used for efficiency. The application is equally simple here: one pre-dosed granulate sachet (Granufloor) per tank fill.

Granulate is a win all around
Even after two and a half years, Anna Maria Briatico remains fully convinced by granulate cleaning. But how does it look in terms of costs? «Viewed in isolation, the product is more expensive than a liquid cleaner. However, when all process costs and operational improvements are taken into account, cleaning is ultimately more cost-effective,» explains Anna Maria Briatico. Granulate has led to a proud twelve practical improvements at REHAB Basel (see coloured box).

REHAB Basel has arrived in the future of cleaning. Yet, Anna Maria Briatico embraces continuous improvement like no other. Her vision: «We now clean everything possible with granulate. The icing on the cake would be if, in the future, we could even carry out kitchen and deep floor cleaning with granulates.» This statement shows just how profoundly this new method could revolutionise an entire industry.

Note: REHAB Basel uses a customised colour-coding system to assign cloth colours to different cleaning applications.

«There is no cleaning product easier to dose than Wetrok Granuline.
Especially for toilets: 1 sachet for one toilet bowl. You simply can’t go wrong.»

Erkan Bakiu, Team Leader & Cleaning Specialist at REHAB Basel

This is how simple it works with the granulate:

1. Fill the foam bottle with water up to the mark

2. Open the granulate sachet and pour the granulate in

3. Close the foam bottle

4. Shake the foam bottle

5. Apply the generated foam onto a microfiber cloth