Cleanrooms and controlled environments in industries such as life sciences and microelectronics depend on sterile or non-sterile disposable garments like coveralls, hoods, and overboots to maintain stringent standards. While these garments are crucial in ensuring product integrity and compliance, their packaging contributes to plastic waste—a growing environmental challenge.

Recognizing this issue, Ansell has introduced an innovative packing approach to minimize the environmental footprint of cleanroom garment packaging by consolidating disposable garment components into a single packed kit. This article explores how BioClean-D™ Garment Kits advance sustainability goals and increase productivity in cleanroom operations.

Reducing Environmental Impact with Sustainable Packaging

An operator entering a cleanroom needs to be dressed head to toe in cleanroom-compatible garments – coverall, hood, overboots – to ensure contamination control and protect contamination-sensitive products. Each garment component is individually packed in two PE bags to enable the transfer of the component through the facility to maintain its cleanliness and integrity until the point of use. Ansell’s consolidated packaging approach packs all three components into a single recyclable PE inner bag, significantly reducing the overall amount of PE inner bags needed. The environmental benefits include:

Reduction in Plastic Waste The single-bag approach cuts plastic waste by two-thirds, saving 1 ton of plastic annually. This is equivalent to eliminating approximately 2.38 million plastic straws from the waste stream1.

Lower Carbon Emissions The reduction in packaging materials saves 2.1 tons of CO2 emissions per year, which is comparable to the emissions from charging 262,500 smartphones2.

Streamlined Logistics and Shipping

Consolidating packaging also transforms supply chain logistics by enabling more efficient shipping and delivery processes:

Improved Shipping Efficiency With consolidated packaging, shipping efficiency improves by 116% per shipper container, resulting in a 53% reduction in the total number of shipments required annually.

Simplified Waste Management

The sustainability of Ansell’s consolidated packaging extends beyond the reduction of plastic. Both the inner (LDPE) and outer (HDPE) bags, along with shipper cases are made from 100% recycled content and are recyclable3. This contributes to more responsible waste management, minimizing environmental impact in cleanroom operations.

Additionally, plastic packaging remains a critical factor in ensuring cleanroom sterility and contamination control. Learn more about its role in maintaining industry standards in our blog on why plastic packaging is crucial for cleanroom consumables.

Boosting Operational Efficiency

In addition to environmental benefits, consolidated packaging significantly enhances workplace efficiency:

Time Savings Cleanroom operators handle fewer packages during the garment donning process, enabling quicker gowning, and reducing time taken to gown by 66%. This equates to saving 59 hours annually per operator, equivalent to gaining nearly 7.5 full workdays4.

Space Optimization Consolidated packages result in one shipper case of kits instead of three shipper cases per individual component. Fewer shipper cases mean less storage space required in the warehouse and less storage space needed in the changing rooms.