- using nature's brilliant little helpers to solve some of life's difficult problems
There are some clever little chaps about who have been clearing up organic waste rather successfully for some time. Quite a long time actually - perhaps as long as 3 billion years. The name of these helpful fellows? Bacteria.
Bacteria are some of Nature's most amazing organisms. They are the oldest life-form, having existed for probably three-quarters of Earth's history. They are the smallest living creatures and the simplest, consisting of one single cell. They are found in every accessible environment - from polar ice to hot springs, from ocean depths to the very top of the tallest mountains. Each of us carries around something like 114 grams (about a quarter of a pound) of bacteria. In favourable conditions, a single bacterium will produce 1 billion progeny after about 15 hours.
In short, bacteria are this planet's most abundant, most varied, most versatile and most useful organisms.
Branova has set these helpful little bugs to work in solving some of life's unpleasant problems. (We ask them very nicely and no cruelty is involved.) Naturally, we ask only the good guys - non-pathogenic and non-toxic microbes - and we get them to bring along their friends. Quite a few, as a matter of fact - over 65 million per millilitre. As you don't want your bugs active before you need them, they are allowed to snooze quietly in the bottle as 'endospores', the stable dormant form of bacteria. As soon as there is a food-source available ("mmmm: urine - yummy"), they wake up and transfer to the vegetative stage, able to break down organic matter.
Although there are a hundred different potential uses for microbiological products using bacteria, Branova is concentrating on four Zybax products for the moment:
- OdourMaster for cleaning toilets and to eradicate urine and other smells effectively and permanently, wherever they occur
- OdourMaster Tablets convenient tablet form, particularly useful with scrubber-driers or in toilets on long-distance coaches etc.
- ClogMaster for unblocking and deodorising drains
- PottiMaster for use with portable and mobile toilets
The beauty of all the Zybax products is that they are both extremely effective and very kind to the environment. What's more, they are very safe to use and store, are not subject to COSHH regulations and are Agenda 21 compliant.
Of course, microbiological products are not new. They have been around for some time, particularly in water-treatment and for agricultural uses, but some have also been marketed for odour-control. Unfortunately, they have not always been terribly successful. This is partly because a liquid microbiological product needs at least 50 million microbes per ml (so-called 'CFUs' or Colony-Forming Units) to function optimally - Zybax products have about 67 million. Products have appeared on the market containing only 1 to 15 million CFUs and it is hardly surprising they failed.
There is another reason why other products have not worked. There are three groups of bacteria:
- Aerobic which need oxygen to thrive
- Anaerobic which grow where there is no oxygen
- Facultative which can survive with or without oxygen
Most microbiological products have tended to contain aerobic microbes, which are not easily able to trigger bio-acceleration - the controlled breaking-down of organic matter. Zybax, on the other hand, has a high percentage of facultative bacteria, which are very flexible organisms, able to adapt to varying conditions and thrive down in deep recesses where there is no oxygen.
Testimonials from many of our satisfied customers are available on request.
