Kelso chemical engineering firm switch to make sanitiser

A chemical engineering company in the Scottish Borders has turned their hand to anti-bacterial sanitiser to help front line workers.

Scotmas, in Kelso, usually specialise in travel protection, like mosquito repellent but say 90% of their business disappeared with the lockdown.

It's been replaced with a colossal demand for hand sanitisers, sprays and large scale disinfectant.

The company director told ITV Border that they have sold more in two weeks than they have in 10 years.

Scotsmas' managing Director, Alistair Cameron, said: "We’re supplying a range of front-line services like police, coastguard, councils Royal Mail people who require long lasting hand protection against various bacteria and viruses.

"Other parts of our business are working hard producing testing for masks for the NHS we’re also working on some temporary water treatment systems for some of the temporary hospitals."

To work around changes, staff have adapted their shifts and wear extra protection to keep themselves safe.

"All our staff have put in a lot of effort extra shifts, willing to go the extra mile, waiting on supplies, supplies coming in last minute, willing to come back after doing a day’s work to get stuff to the front line" said, Alistair.

Credit: PA

He continues: "We’ve been through a number of crisis like foot and mouth and various crisis over the past twenty years and one thing we can always rely on is our resilience of our staff and our ability to innovate.

"We were able to turn around our production in a week to meet the changes in the market place. We’re certainly up for the challenge, doing our very best to support those in the front-line services."

The company are producing 10,000 bottles of hand sanitiser a day, as well as surface sprays and cleaners.

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