Many hotels are wondering if they should be using chlorine-based or oxygenated bleach in the laundry and other cleaning tasks. It’s a fair question and the answer depends on what your goals are.

Chlorine bleach is what you think of when you think of “bleach.” It’s been around forever, it’s what your grandmother would use to get her whites white (and get rid of body oils in the wash) and her toilet clean.

Oxygen bleach is sodium percarbonate, a compound of natural soda crystals and hydrogen peroxide. When it comes into contact with water, it releases oxygen bubbles which do the real work to get rid of dirt and germs.

Other advantages of oxygen bleach include:

• It’s safer for your septic system.
• It’s much more environmentally-friendly than chlorine bleach - the only byproduct is soda ash, which is harmless.
• It’s less corrosive, odourless and safer to handle.
• It can be safely mixed with other cleaners, which is not the case with chlorine bleach (always check and follow instructions when mixing any bleach with other substances).
• Advocates of oxygen bleach say it cleans just as well as chlorine bleach does yet is far gentler on fabrics.
• It’s colour-safe, and doesn’t bleach white spots on coloured fabrics - although oxygen bleach manufacturers still recommend testing on a part of the fabric that doesn’t show, just to be sure.

Drawbacks to oxygen bleach:

• Like so many green-friendly substitutes it’s noticeably more expensive than what it’s replacing, in this case chlorine bleach.
• Powdered oxygen bleach takes longer to start working than chlorine bleach does, although oxygen bleach in liquid form does use hydrogen peroxide to speed things up.

Frankly, it comes down to green and cost considerations. Like so many green-friendly products it is more expensive for about the same results, but if being able to say “We use only environmentally-friendly cleaning products” fits your overall marketing goals, it’s better to go with oxygenated bleach.