Implementing sustainable laundering procedures for textiles in a commercial laundry and thus decreasing wastewater burden

This paper presents a research on how to optimize a laundering program to reduce wastewater burden thus achieving a more sustainable laundering procedure. A green surgical textiles program was investigated and the first step of optimization was performed based on the results of measuring certain parameters in the water taken from individual chambers. The wastewater parameters were reduced after optimization of the program although effluent treatment plants for water reuse remain necessary. An experimental laundering procedure with a high dosage of sodium hypochlorite was also conducted in order to observe a correlation between measured values of active chlorine and conductivity. As an approximate correlation was found this could result in the possibility of incorporating a sensor in the washing machine measuring online the conductivity with the possibility of regulating the dosage of sodium hypochlorite and thus preventing overdosing, which increases the damages of the laundered textiles and the burden of wastewater.