Chlorine-free cleaning

David Gleeson

Industry impact: It is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve dairy product specifications, when chlorine-based products are incorporated in milking equipment cleaning routines on farm. Residues such as trichloromethane and chlorate in milk are directly linked to the use of chlorine-based cleaning detergents. An alternative to the difficult task of policing proper use of chlorine-based detergents on farm is to remove chlorine as an ingredient from the detergent. To address the needs of industry, new non chlorine-based cleaning protocols have been developed and evaluated on research farms. The implications of removing chlorine at farm level on microbiological and residue levels are being investigated on commercial farms. Guidelines on best practice plant cleaning (in the absence of chlorine) have been compiled (Moorepark Dairy Levy Research Update, Series 37). These booklets have been distributed to 10,000 milk suppliers through the relevant milk processors.

Correspondence: david.gleeson@teagasc.ie

Contribution of non-research stakeholders:

Detergent manufacturers.

Other contributors and collaborators: Milk quality advisors and milk processors have facilitated the dissemination of this research.

Funding: Teagasc grant-in-aid (RMIS 6643) and Dairy Research Ireland.