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TECHNOLOGY HELPS GLOBAL TOOTHPASTE MANUFACTURER SAVE WATER AND DRIVE PRODUCTIVITY
INSIGHT
Colgate-Palmolive has a strong and longstanding commitment to sustainability. By 2020, the global oral care, home care, personal care products and pet nutrition company aims to reduce water intensity in its manufacturing operations by half, energy intensity by one-third and absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent, all over a 2002 baseline. Its Mission Hills plant in Guanajuato Estate, Mexico, is one of the world’s largest toothpaste facilities. It also produces deodorant, and dish and bar soaps. With a strong culture of sustainability, the Mission Hills plant does all it can to conserve water. It is a zero liquid discharge site that recycles its treated wastewater for use in the plant’s utilities and landscaping. Prior to working with Ecolab, cleaning and sanitizing the plant was a manual, hot water-only process that consumed significant time, water and energy.
INNOVATION
The plant enlisted Ecolab’s help to improve the efficiency and sustainability of its cleaning and sanitizing process. Ecolab brought new solutions to Mission Hills’ eight manufacturing lines. One of these, an Ecolab detergent, removes a wide array of stubborn processing residues from production equipment. The other, an Ecolab sanitizer, provides one-step sanitizing with the potential to eliminate a final water rinse.
Together, they led to:
- Substantial reductions in cleaning times
- Elimination of manual washes
- Improved cleaning reliability and product quality assurance
- Significant savings in time, water and energy use
- Reductions in CO2 emissions
With a strong culture of sustainability, Colgate-Palmolive is committed to conserving water and energy and enhancing the efficiency of its global operations. Its Mission Hills plant in water-scarce Mexico is a prime example of the company putting its principles into action.
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