Toronto Pearson Airport

Toronto Pearson is Canada's largest and busiest airport in Canada's largest and busiest city. The stunning, completely functional and incredibly friendly airport is the hub for some 456,000 flights a year.

Lester B. Pearson International Airport is the primary international airport servicing Canada, the second-busiest international air passenger gateway in the Americas, and the 30th-busiest airport in the world. Over 75 airlines operate from the airport with more than 1,250 departures from the airport daily.

"Pearson's a big airport. A lot of people go through these terminals every day," stresses Humberto Torrao, Dexterra's Director for Airport Operations at Pearson International. "With the volume of passengers and frequency of use, we were receiving complaints regularly of strong odours in restrooms as well as
dirt and grime across many areas."

BY THE NUMBERS

Number of passengers: 47 million annually
Number of terminals: 3
Cleaning Square Footage: Over 1 million
Sector: Air transportation
Product: cleaning and deodorizing

Since our introduction of SAO, complaints about odours at the airport have been extremely reduced.

Humberto Torrao
Director of Airport Operations
Dexterra Facilities Management Services

 

In 2015, Torrao set out to find a new solution to improve the health and safety of its cleaning operations – with a particular focus on reducing the odour that is often found in airport restrooms. Additionally, Torrao also wanted to reduce his
dependency on chemicals. "This is such a large space to clean that reducing chemicals by even just a little bit would make a difference," he notes.

That summer, he attended an air transportation conference and discovered Stabilized Aqueous Ozone (SAO). Tersano's SAO improves maintenance operations by reducing costly cleaning chemicals through an alternative cleaning technology that harnesses the power of liquid ozone: the Tersano lotus PRO. The lotus PRO creates SAO: a simple, safe, sustainable solution that replaces traditional chemical-based cleaners and deodorizers. SAO is environmentally-friendly and is approved and certified by many regulatory organizations including Green Seal, HACCP, OSHA, and more.

Torrao returned to test the SAO and liked what he saw.

"Prior to SAO we used chemical cleaners and still had odour problems. Since our introduction of SAO, our complaints over odours have been extremely reduced – so much so that for one entire year now we have not received any complaints of odour from the public. We attribute this to the SAO."

Although the effectiveness of SAO was quickly proven, the acceptance of the innovative way to clean took a little time. "In the beginning, the challenge was
convincing staff, clients, and tenants that the SAO works," explains Torrao. "The SAO is dispensed in a clear format and this lack of colour or odour made my staff wary there is any cleaning power in the bottle." Torrao focused on education and training to help acceptance. He also enforced the use of it.

After several years now his staff has come around. "Today, my staff loves using the SAO. They have no complaints and are very comfortable using it. We use it everywhere." Torrao notes that simplicity is one of the benefits the staff loves the most. "You just turn the switch on and let it pour. No spatter, no mixing, no free pouring of chemicals – which was always a concern." Torrao's staff also loves that it is safe: "There are no issues of chemical contamination or indigestion."
Would his staff ever go back to their previous ways of cleaning using chemicals? "No, I don't believe they would. They actually enjoy using SAO -
its clean, fresh scent with no concern over it being abrasive and toxic," states Torrao.  "Even better, employees throughout the terminal building are
extremely happy that we have chosen to use SAO as a method of cleaning. Many of our tenants have concerns and reactions to chemical base cleaners and are quite sensitive to odours and chemicals.

 

IMPACT  

  • SAFE FOR STAFF - Powerful enough to clean and deodorize, yet safe for people, planet and animals.
  • SIMPLER TO USE - With no storing, managing, mixing, or disposing SAO is simply a quicker, easier way to clean.
  • SUSTAINABLE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT - No more pouring chemicals into drainage systems when cleaning is complete.
  • COST-EFFECTIVE - The days of buying chemicals are over.