Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 19th March 2026 Issue no. 1202
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 International News
Products National Cleaning Week: ‘Celebrating Cleaning Innovation’
Public washroom dilemmas, faux pas and etiquette: what would you do?
Polygiene launches OdorCrunch2.0: next-generation odour capture technology for modern textiles
Clientshare launches Connect to scale customer engagement and sentiment tracking for businesses
Sofidel continues its expansion in the US: $775Mn investment finalised for Inola, Oklahoma
Spanish global waste business Urbaser sells to Blackstone and EQT
SoftBank Robotics America broadens physical AI solutions portfolio
This announcement furthers the future of physical AI solutions for the sector and expands the company’s solutions portfolio with advanced technologies designed to deliver increased efficiency and enterprise value in highly dynamic environments. ECHA finally adopts opinion on ethanol and supports its approval in disinfectants
EnvirOx launches industry disrupting cleaner disinfectant
UMF|PerfectClean announces Hygiene Specialist Excellence Award winners
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Welcome to the Cleanzine
I was feeling good on Tuesday morning, thanks to an incredibly rare (these days) couple of hours of reasonably blue skies and a smidgeon of warmish sunshine, when I opened an email from the British Cleaning Council. What it revealed instigated a search for an illustration which depicted how my temperament had changed, to accompany the social media posts I was about to make: 'blood boiling'. Why? We've been stripped of our ability to attract people to a career in the cleaning industry via an Apprenticeship! Facilities Management's been affected too. I write this hours later, still on the boil & angrier than I've been in a long time.
Aged four, a visit to town to be measured up for new shoes seeded an ambition work in a shoe shop. It never left me and that’s the first thing I did upon leaving school. Wonderfully fulfilled! My parents though, having had higher aspirations for their youngest, grammar school educated daughter, exerted gentle pressure which eventually made me reconsider. That, before reaching 18, I'd run the shop throughout busy twice-yearly sales, learnt to sell, dressed windows, prepared and paid wages and commissions and produced staff productivity charts, makes me wonder what lofty heights I could have eventually reached. I was about to say that the cleaning industry suffers from the same sort of bias that my parents held against shop-work, but actually it's worse. Cleaning's far more important than fashion and shoe-selling. It's one of the most vitally important industries there is and those who do well in it can end up earning excellent money. But it's not just about the money. It's about saving lives, since we know without a shadow of a doubt that the lack of proper cleaning and hygiene can quickly make people ill and that this illness can lead to death.
What on earth is the UK Government thinking? I'm incensed!
There's a lot I'm not happy about regarding the way these wonderful isles and the lives of those in them are being damaged by our leaders, but this latest decision is making me feel pretty militant. Our sector spends £millions in Apprenticeship Levy payments but once again there won't be a cleaning or FM Apprenticeship in which to invest those funds. If I could have my way, every cleaner at the Palace of Westminster would down tools immediately - along with those cleaning the private residences of the idiots who've chosen to relegate cleaning back to the low level from which we've all worked so hard to lift it. And every cleaning product supplier would stop deliveries to those who've betrayed us. In my view, the decision-makers who clearly look down on our profession should be forced to learn just how tough things can quickly become if their hardworking cleaning professionals leave them to wallow in their own muck.
  This Week's News
Mrs Buckét makes senior management team changes
Kate Ablett (pictured left) has been promoted to managing director. Previously people & operations director, where she managed that team and oversaw operational performance, Kate steps into Rachael Flanagan's former role. Rachael, who founded the business in 2005, moves into the position of CEO, allowing her to focus on the strategic projection of the business and continue as an inspiring brand ambassador for Mrs Buckét. BCC 'extremely disappointed' at Apprenticeship defunding - a statement
"We are extremely disappointed to hear of the planned defunding of the Level 2 Cleaning Hygiene Operative apprenticeship. This is an alarming step backwards for one of the biggest industries in the UK; a sector which underpins public health & safety, and national resilience.  What the 2026 Statutory Sick Pay changes mean for the cleaning industry
“The UK cleaning industry is facing another significant employment cost as new Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) rules come into force on April 6th. Following a difficult year in 2025 with the increases to employer National Insurance and a rise in the National Minimum Wage, the latest changes could have a noticeable impact on labour-intensive sectors such as contract cleaning. SOAPBOX: Day-one sick pay reform will increase costs for the FM sector
“Under new legislation, coming into force on the 6th April 2026, statutory sick pay will be payable from the first day of absence rather than from day four, a change expected to increase the financial burden on employers with large frontline workforces. OCS Ireland named Total FM Service Provider of the Year at FM Awards
The judges look to recognise the Total Facilities Management provider that has demonstrated the strongest performance across service delivery, innovation, customer satisfaction and business impact over the past 12 months.  Winners of 2nd Annual Spotless Spaces competition announced
"The Spotless Spaces Competition represents the very best of our industry worldwide - where precision, innovation and a deep commitment to excellence come together," says ISSA executive director Kim Althoff. Pisys Permit To Work system adopted by major laundry and textile services provider
Pisys, a Scottish software company specialising in cloud-based HSEQ systems for industries including energy, food, education and healthcare, provides its flagship Permit to Work system to organisations worldwide to manage risk efficiently. Lucid Bots raises further $20mn to accelerate buildout of US exterior cleaning platform
"We're on an ambitious journey to give software a body to do physically productive work that the world needs and become the USA's leading supplier of modular drones and robots," says Andrew Ashur, founder and CEO of Lucid Bots. EscaTEQ to introduce structured escalator cleaning framework at Interclean Amsterdam 2026
Despite more than a century of escalator use globally, no widely adopted framework exists for routine escalator cleaning, says EscaTEQ. Strengthening next-generation workforce technology and AI hiring infrastructure
This investment is designed to strengthen YY Group's next-generation workforce technology and AI hiring infrastructure, further enhancing its flagship YY Circle platform. The Cleanzine Archive Search We keep an extensive archive of news stories and product information that have featured in past issues of The Cleanzine. If you would like to run a search of the The Cleanzine web site using the search tool below please just go ahead by entering in the name of the person, product or company or any other key words that you are looking for. How to contact us at The Cleanzine:
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