Recently, we've had a few of our customers ask us some environment-related questions about using Vamoosh Pet Hair Dissolver - and although we've answered those questions individually, we felt it was important to follow up some of these on our blog below...
Looking after our environment is high priority for us (as we're sure it is for all of you) and we have done our best here to explain how we developed Vamoosh to have a limited impact on the environment. If you have any other queries though please feel free to comment or drop us an email at info@vamooshcleans.com
Some of your environmental considerations...
- To dissolve hair, surely it must contain toxic chemicals that are harmful for the environment?
- Isn't running a 90 degree wash bad for the environment?
Our answers...
When developing Vamoosh Pet Hair Dissolver, ensuring the safety of the environment and the safety of the pet was a huge priority for us.
Vamoosh does not contain any toxic or harmful chemicals (unlike drain cleaners!)
Vamoosh works on the same premise as a drain cleaner - i.e. it dissolves hair in water. However (and this is the most important bit!) whereas drain cleaners often contain caustic powerful chemicals that, once flushed away, make their way into our eco-system - including lakes, rivers and soil - and can harm our eco-system, humans and wildlife, Vamoosh Pet Hair Dissolver does not contain any ingredients that leave harmful residues for the pet or the environment in our ecosystem. (You can read more about the science behind Vamoosh here if you are interested in finding out more.)
Using a hotter wash
Because we were so keen to make sure that the Vamoosh formula did not contain any of these harmful chemicals (and the fact that hair is so difficult to break down) it did mean that in order for our formula to work, it would require a high temperature wash.
From an environmental perspective, we are all recommended to wash at a lower temperature, however, washing machine manufacturers do in fact recommend running a 85-95 degrees wash every month to make sure there are no bad odours caused by bacteria building up in the washing machine drum due to low wash temperatures. This monthly hot wash can therefore be combined with your pet bed/Vamoosh wash to save electricity - and as Vamoosh ensures the machine is left hygienically clean you can easily combine the two.
On another note, during our research before launching Vamoosh, we found that pet owners' alternatives to removing pet hair from their washing machine were no better (and sometimes worse) for the environment than using a hot wash. Their methods for removing pet hair without Vamoosh included: using single-use plastic wet wipes to wipe away the hair, or running multiple washing cycles to get rid of the hair therefore using a lot of extra water and electricity.
To conclude...
In summary, Vamoosh does leave behind any harmful or toxic chemicals that will leak into our eco-system and affect animals or humans. And although we would love to be able to develop a formula that works using a lower temperature (and believe us, we are constantly looking at ways of doing this!) for the moment, Vamoosh does require a higher temperature washing cycle of 85-95 degrees celsius to work, but as mentioned, this can be combined with your monthly hot wash (as recommended by your washing machine manufacturer) - and this also needs to be balanced against the alternatives for not using Vamoosh (such as running extra cycles and using wet wipes or other means of removing hair).