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15 kilometers every day for cleanliness: look around and see!

Cleaners’ work often goes unheralded. A campaign to raise awareness of the people who get up to work every day to make our environment clean is trying to change that.

We have to notice them

‘Since last year we have been planning to launch a social sensitivity campaign to make the public aware of the socially indispensable yet almost invisible work of cleaners’, said Ferenc Kis-Szölgyémi, CEO of B+N.

The groundwork had been laid for long months but by the time we were ready, COVID-19 had reached the country. The 45 thousand cleaners in the country have always deserved our heartfelt appreciation, but in these times they deserve it a 100 times more. We employ 4100 cleaners who are doing a great job cleaning transportation vehicles, hospitals and office buildings. The majority of our society take cleanliness for granted but do not appreciate the people who make it happen. With our campaign “Look round and see” we want to show an alternative.

They help us contain the coronavirus

The expression ‘kinda clean’ is missing from a professional cleaner’s vocabulary. ‘Thoroughly!’ is more like it. Especially now that pathogens have to be removed from door handles and handrails day by day. Professional cleaning is nothing like cleaning at home: firm knowledge of chemicals, technical skills (operation of modern, expensive cleaning machines and cleaning robots), reliability and physical endurance are indispensable for quality work. Many cleaners commute to Budapest to get to the office building, airport, hospital or train carriage they have to clean.

Somebody has to take the night shift too, as premises can be thoroughly cleaned only after the employees have left the building. What does it mean in numbers? In a 12-hour shift they empty an average of 12-14 m3 of garbage, cover a distance of 15-18 km in the buildings and lift 80-100 liters of water during mopping. ‘Cleaners make our everyday life comfortable’, said Erika Kókai, Marketing Director of B+N. ‘We have got so used to the order and cleanliness around us that we simply take it for granted and fail to even notice the people who created it. It is our responsibility to do something about the prestige of this work and to stand up for our cleaners and every cleaner in the country because if everything stays the same, soon nobody is going to be left to clean the country’.

Source: femcafe.hu