It is clear that one of the major contagion pathways for the Corona virus is hand to mouth. Hand sanitisers prevent this. There is a critical shortage of hand sanitisers across Europe. Ineos will build a UK factory to produce 1 million bottles per month within 10 days and will replicate this in Germany.
Ineos, one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, has yesterday announced plans to produce 1 million hand sanitisers per month to help with the European shortage. These will be produced according to World Health Organisation specifications and be specifically designed to kill bacteria and viruses.
Ineos is the leading European producer of the two key raw materials needed for sanitisers - isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and ethanol. The company is already running these plants flat out and have been diverting more of this product to essential medical use and will now build two new factories to make hand sanitiser from them.
Ineos intends to produce both standard and the increasingly popular “pocket bottle” hand sanitisers and is already talking to retail outlets across Europe. Supplies to NHS hospitals will be free of charge for the period of the crisis with the public being able to purchase bottles through retailers.
Ineos takes its corporate and social responsibilities extremely seriously, its products are essential to the production of essential healthcare products from rubber gloves, to PVC saline drips, syringes, ventilators, medical tubing. Its products purify the public drinking water. It produces raw materials for soap, acetone for aspirin and paracetamol, and its phenol is being used in pharmaceutical analysis essential in procedures necessary to find a vaccine.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of Ineos adds, “Ineos is a company with enormous resources and manufacturing skills. If we can find other ways to help in the coronavirus battle, we are absolutely committed to playing our part”.
