For Managing Director Gudrun Jersch-Bittermann, the most important reason for switching to a completely chemical-free green cleaning concept in her two schools was to protect the health of her employees and pupils in the best possible way. At the same time, cleaning without any cleaning agents offers the private Montessori schools in Kronach and Mitwitz the perfect combination of ecologically sustainable action that also pays off economically. A win-win-win situation for the school family in the Upper Franconian district of Kronach.
"Our cleaning staff are a very valuable asset for us," explains Gudrun Jersch-Bittermann, Managing Director of the Montessori schools in Kronach and Mitwitz. "On the one hand, good employees in this area are really hard to come by and, on the other, the cleaning team has a great responsibility, especially in these times, to create a safe standard of hygiene for our pupils." In order to minimize the exposure of her cleaning staff to chemical agents and physically demanding work processes, she was therefore looking for an alternative to conventional cleaning concepts.
"I was already familiar with steam cleaners, but the way micro dry steam works was completely new to me." After the first demonstration of a Micro Cleaner on site at the Montessori school in Kronach, the managing director was already convinced of the effective cleaning performance of the device - without any chemical cleaning agents: "It turned out that floors and surfaces that we had already cleaned and thought were clean were not really clean." What was removed from the seemingly clean areas by the micro dry steam cleaning was not only overlooked dirt, but above all a lot of residue from cleaning agents that had been used for years.
No chance for germs
Micro dry steam is extremely hot and extremely dry steam, which has several advantages. The temperature of over 180 degrees at which the dry steam is generated in the cleaning device automatically ensures thermal disinfection during cleaning, as even the most stubborn germs are inactivated at 90 degrees. At the same time, the high heat reduces the moisture content to just 5%. This means that even sensitive materials such as textiles or wood can be cleaned, as no moisture is produced. Another advantage of so-called saturated steam: as the water particles in micro dry steam are also so small that they no longer have any surface tension, they can penetrate even the smallest pores - unlike with conventional steam cleaners with a high water content - and thus dissolve even stubborn stains.
"Our cleaning team quickly realized that all areas can be optimally cleaned with the micro dry steam devices, of which we now have five in use in our two schools, and that any difficult cleaning problem can be solved," says Gudrun Jersch-Bittermann. "This means that we no longer need any chemical cleaning agents. In this way, we make a significant contribution in terms of sustainability, because we no longer get any chemicals into the waste water and we avoid plastic packaging. At the same time, we save a lot of money - an equally important factor for us as a private school."
A live impression of chemical-free cleaning at the Montessori school in Mitwitz is also available on video at > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DcwAhvgg7Y.
