Electrolyzer Replaces Dangerous Cleaning Agents in the Home and Saves Consumers Money

Pat Lucci and Gerard Kiley are betting that once consumers learn about their green, innovative and completely safe sanitizer-cleaner they will “make the can of Comet sitting under their kitchen sink the last one they will ever buy.”

Lucci and Kiley are the managing partners of Massachusetts-based Lynnfield Green Technologies, which sells the Toucan–ECO and Toucan Mini, “electrolyzers” that produce a harmless yet effective cleaning and sanitizing solution created from table salt, tap water and a small charge of electricity. The Toucan-ECO takes four minutes — and costs less than a penny — to activate 1.5 liters of electrolyzed water comprising a cleaning and sanitizing solution. The Toucan Mini makes a smaller amount.

The sanitizer half of the machine — hypochlorous acid — according to the EPA, is 80 times more effective than chlorine bleach as a sanitizer, yet it’s completely nontoxic. And the cleanser half — sodium hydroxide — is an effective cleanser that can be used to remove dirt and grease from any device or surface, including food service operations.

“It’s at least as a good as a cleaner and sanitizer as anything you can buy,” says Lucci. “But it’s 100 percent nontoxic. It literally can’t hurt you. The EPA has put hypochlorous acid on a list of chemicals it calls GRAS, an acronym meaning “generally regarded as safe,” meaning it can’t hurt you. So safe is this sanitizer that the EPA has also approved it as a food additive.”

As Kiley puts it, “We are a disruptive technology.”

Lynnfield Green Technologies’ motto is “Safety, Savings and Sustainability.” Given what the Toucan products can do, there is no rationale for buying dangerous chemicals such as Comet or furniture cleaner anymore. “If you’ve got a young family and you’ve got young children in the house, you don’t have to put those jury-rigged locks on the cabinet under your sink because you won’t have those deadly chemicals in there anymore,” Lucci says. The electrolyzed water is so safe that a customer from Maine sprays the sanitizer directly into her dog’s mouth to clean his breath.

The cost per unit of cleanser and sanitizer is “literally under a penny for one liter of sanitizer-cleanser,” Lucci says.

As for sustainability, home cleaning chemicals come in plastic bottles, which are discarded or recycled, a significant waste of resources. Every day we use 2 million gallons of oil just to make bottles. Widespread use of the Toucan products could lessen the plastic bottle supply chain significantly and even eliminate the use toxic chemicals in the home entirely.

The electrolyzers are versatile. Industrial-size versions have replaced soap and dishwashing detergent in restaurants and hotels, and yet one customer in Massachusetts, using the Toucan-Mini, uses the sanitizer to eliminate odors from her son’s hockey equipment. Chefs use the sanitizer to kill salmonella bacteria.

And LGT electrolyzers are unique, and Lucci, a former science and technology journalist, takes issue with companies that market their cleaning products as a “green sanitizer.” Lucci advises consumers to read the warning label on any such product, and if they really do think it’s green, to take a mouthful and see what happens.

“That, to me, is the litmus test: If you can put a cleaner-sanitizer in your mouth and it doesn’t hurt you, that’s green. That’s the standard; anything else is not,” Lucci says. “That’s our contention at Lynnfield Green Technologies. And I will challenge anyone who believes they have a green cleaner-sanitizer to stand next to me, on a stage or in front of a camera, and take a mouthful of theirs while I take a mouthful of mine. I’m not asking anyone to swallow it. I’m not asking anyone to kill themselves. But that’s the challenge, as far as I’m concerned, to
determine whether or not a chemical is truly, truly green.”

Lynnfield Green Technologies is a business partner of the Green Alliance, a union of local sustainable businesses promoting environmentally sound business practices and a green co-op offering discounted green products and services to its members. Green Alliance members get $75 off the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $350 for the Toucan-Eco using the promotional TOU. The MSRP of the Toucan mini is $150. GA members get $20 off this device when they use the promotional code TCM.

For more information about Lynnfield Green Technologies, visit www.lynnfieldgreentech.com.

And for more information about the Green Alliance, visit www.greenalliance.biz.