Top marks for toilet dispensers

Full budget control

As with all educational establishments, budgets are tight and carefully managed. Sam Hanson, estates and operations manager, joined the establishment early in 2015, and was tasked with finding ways to save costs across the estate. The first thing Sam realised was that the schools had a mix and match approach to toilet rolls.

He said: “This kind of situation reduced the buying power for the institution, and meant that three different types of stock had to be maintained at an appropriate level, which is not cost effective. For me, the best way to reduce cost was to standardise on dispensers and rationalise our product usage – so we just needed to decide which system to settle on."

Sam looked at the functionality of the dispensers, and the meterage of the rolls. “One of the systems already installed was the Katrin System Toilet roll," he said. “So we got in touch with our distributor, Astleys, to ensure that we had a full view of the latest products from the manufacturers, in order to compare like for like."

Inclusive policies

Karen Thompson, Astleys account manager, introduced Sam to the very latest Katrin Inclusive System Toilet Dispensers.

She said: “The dispenser functionality was similar to the ones that the school already had, but the design of the dispensers is really nice, available in both black and white, and with special consideration given to users of varying abilities, so ideal for the ‘inclusive policies’ run by most educational establishments.”

She added: “In addition, we introduced Sam to the very latest Katrin System Toilet roll – a 100% recycled fibre, 2 ply, Eco Roll (Katrin 103424). The roll still has 800 sheets per roll, but it has a very nice feel to it for a recycled roll."

During the comparison, Sam found that the roll meterage didn’t really vary that much between suppliers.

Sam explained: “We really liked the feel of the Katrin product, and because the dispensers hold two rolls, they were a high capacity solution, which means less refilling for the cleaning staff. So we decided to roll out the Katrin solution across all of the estate."

Environmental compliance

Sustainability was also a key issue for the School Foundation. Sam said: “As with all schools, we have environmental targets to reach, and we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint.

“The fact that the toilet rolls were 100% recycled was an important factor in our decision, as was Metsa Tissue’s obvious commitment to the environment."

Karen takes up the story: “Metsa Tissue’s environmental compliance is one of the key reasons that Astley’s works in partnership with them. From the forest, where they replace every tree cut with four, right through to the Ecolabels that the products have demonstrates that they take care of the environment at every step of the manufacturing process. This means that we can be confident in promoting their products as environmentally friendly."

Metsa Tissue funded the fitting of the new dispensers which were provided free on loan.

“The whole installation process was stress free – Metsa Tissue make the process very simple – with no complex form filling that we experienced from some of the other suppliers that we looked at,"  Sam said.

He concluded: “We believe we made the right choice with Katrin, and we are now looking at other products in their range."