Sustainability in Summary

For over 40 years OPHARDT hygiene has been making sustainable contributions towards the improvement of hygiene in various areas of daily life and work through its high-quality products.

We have been designing and producing hand hygiene dispensers and pumps for use in hospitals, public washrooms, and industrial and institutional facilities since 1962.

However, we don‘t just act according to the principles of sustainability when considering the properties and quality of our products, but also when considering the ecological and social consequences.

Our Corporate Mission is to make our world a more hygienic place to live in while conserving natural resources for a sustainable future.

Economics

Sustainable product quality
Sustainability was tradition at OPHARDT hygiene - long before the term reached the more encompassing meaning it has today. Since the founding of the business, over 40 years ago, the careful processing of high-quality materials has been the foundation of sustainable product quality – and thus of the longstanding satisfaction of our customers and users. Even after continuous use in intense environments such as clinics and hospitals, OPHARDT hygiene dispensers are usually still fully functional ten, fifteen and twenty years later – a practical proof for practice-oriented quality.
Sustainable quality down to the details is a promise that we also make for the future, and we take it seriously: For example, we offer a 5-year Manufacturer‘s Warranty for both our ingo-man^® and SanTRAL^® product lines.

Innovative Dispensing Technology

Maybe you think a pump is just a pump? Think again. OPHARDT hygiene is developing dosage systems for more than 4 decades, continously optimizing our pumps.

Making pumps

• more efficient
• more "green" due to reduction of used material
• less expensive

Raising Efficiency
For the manufacturing of plastic parts in our dispenser systems we use highly efficient and fully electric injection moulding machines at our locations in Canada and Ireland. In contrast to comparable hydraulic machines, our Systems save up to 50% more energy and allow for a distinctly faster, more precise and quieter manufacturing process.

Ecology

Sustainable energy supply through renewable energy
More than 10 percent of our power needs at our location in Maaseik, Belgium, can be met by solar power. By installing an ultra-modern photovoltaic system in 2009, the energy balance can be markedly improved and an active contribution to climate protection is made. Furthermore, a greater independence from external electricity providers will be achieved.

Ressources and Recycling
For OPHARDT hygiene, the sustainable use of resources begins with the extensive minimization of waste and excess products during processing.
For example, in the production of plastic parts for our dispensers, so-called sprue pickers ensure that the sprue pieces are directed back into production. Furthermore, the few remaining plastic residues that qualify as waste completely enter the recycling process. So we achieve a recycling rate of nearly 100 percent.
In the processing of stainless steel and aluminum, the accrued rest materials are sorted and also returned to the cycle of reusable materials. Here, too, a recycling rate of nearly 100 percent is reached.

Packaging material
OPHARDT hygiene uses recyclable packaging materials that can be returned to the cycle of reusable materials. On this premise, the environmental service provider and raw materials dealer, interseroh, awarded us the CO₂-Saver-Certificate. It confirms our active contribution to environmental protection and motivates us to continue to act sustainably as a business in the future.

Social responsibility
With innovative products OPHARDT hygiene improves hygiene in medical establishments, in food processing realms and many other areas. So we also take on social responsibility and actively contribute to improving people‘s quality of life.
Furthermore, to OPHARDT hygiene, acting sustainably means treating coworkers, partner businesses and the social surroundings in which we live in good faith.

Global engagement
As CEO of the OPHARDT hygiene business group, Heiner Ophardt has a special social responsibility. For many years he has been serving as an active member on the board of the „Opportunity International Deutschland“ foundation in the name of OPHARDT hygiene.
Opportunity International Deutschland is part of the global Opportunity network. The goal of this internationally active foundation is to offer what are known as „micro credits“ to needy individuals and in this way effectively contribute to development and fighting poverty in a current total of 26 countries world-wide.
Presently approximately 2 million economically disadvantaged, but entrepreneurially active people take advantage of small credits from „Opportunity International“ and in this way continue to write the success story of the foundation.

Local charity projects
OPHARDT hygiene regularly supports social institutions and relief organizations in their work. Both through financial and material donations, establishments such as shelters for women, children and teenagers are supported in realizing their important social functions.

Bon Secours: Hand hygiene for a good cause
„Making the world a more hygienic place“– with this motto, OPHARDT hygiene supports the charity project „Bon Secours Kamerun e.V.“. A total of 118 durable, aluminium disinfectant dispensers, with a total value of 8000 Euros, were donated to the non-profit association.
The installation of the dispensers is planned for a hospital in the capitol of Cameroon, Yaoundé. This will effectively support the on-site staff in the improvement of hygiene and thus also in the improvement of treating conditions. „With our donation, we want effectively improve the standard of hand hygiene in hospitals“, says Heiner Ophardt, CEO of OPHARDT hygiene.