Brick Lane and Osborne Street Case Study:

Community Clean has wide ranging experience working in both the public and private sectors tackling nuisance issues, regeneration projects, high access challenges and environmental enhancement. Services have been supplied to local and central government, embassies, the prison service, medical institutions, major construction companies, civil engineering contractors, transport operators, housing associations, and the private sector.

We were employed by Veolia Environmental Services as a specialist cleaning and coatings service provider. The challenge in Tower Hamlets was to remove all the chewing gum from the pavement, deep clean the pavement using Magic Cote Surface Prep to remove all the staining and to enhance the appearance of the pavers. Once clean the specialist protection solution ‘Magic Cote’ was applied, which repels gum and other stains from the streets, as well as algae and grime from monuments. The area along Brick Lane and Osborne Street in Tower Hamlets spanned over 7300m2 of pavement.

Magic Cote was used because it is designed to be a more efficient and longer-term solution to pavement and monument protection than previous methods. It not only helps prevent marks, but also makes future cleansing cheaper and easier. Once the coating was applied the area was open to the public within 10 minutes making it less vulnerable to weather changes and minimising disruption to the public. Community Clean are the UK Southern area approved distributor and applicator of Magic Cote and support the 5 year manufacturer guarantee when the product is applied by us. We offered Veolia various team/equipment/shift variations to minimise disruption and we monitored the service throughout to ensure the best possible results were achieved.

The results have illustrated how the cost effectiveness of restoration and protection for an area of this size is considerable. Once a surface is treated it will repel all water and oil based staining such as chewing gum, tea, coffee, blood and cooking fats to name just a few. In fact, a treated area will wash away most surface contaminants during heavy rainfall, making it almost self cleaning!

Veolia were very pleased with the results and continue to reap the rewards of this long term investment.

Magic Cote - A better alternative to your average sealants and coatings

Councils are having to spend a great deal of money removing chewing gum from our streets, and to be honest it is money that could be spent elsewhere. According to information posted by Community Clean £150million is the annual cost to local authorities to remove chewing gum from our streets. Westminster, a user of Magic Cote products, was in 2007 spending £9million for a comprehensive gum clean up.

Many things have been tried to reduce the amount of people dropping chewing gum litter. Litter campaigns, on the spot fines, chewing gum bins or boards; people have even campaigned for a chewing gum tax, some taking it even further suggesting it should be banned completely. Each of these have been trialled and tested with varied success across the country - none of them should be ruled out, especially education. People always say prevention is better than the cure, but what if prevention just isn't working on its own? Falling short of taking away a countries free will to choose to chew gum at some point you are going to have to consider adding a remedy to dropped gum. So far some council’s have opted for sealants and coatings to stop gum sticking to the surface of the decorative stone streets. These often contain very simply resins, waxes and acrylics that don't come with simple applications and can do long term damage by preventing the stone from breathing according to EnCams. Councils will often choose to apply a sealant or coating because they are not on the expensive side and will do what they offer - for how long at to what affect is always the question you should ask of some sealants and coatings on the market. We are not saying that coatings and sealents are the worst thing in the world - we and many of our customers just feel that Magic Cote products are a better choice.

Magic Cote can offer you something a bit different; we don't call it a sealant nor a coating. Our Surface Protection (StreetProtect) forms a semi-permeable membrane, which allows the stone to exhale but not inhale liquids. This means it prevents stains from forming but doesn't cause the stone to erode from within like a sealed surface would. Our protection will protect against oils, fats and greases while making both chewing gum and carbon particulates easier to remove. Any gum that is dropped on a protected surface cannot anchor deeply so will stick for a short time before drying up and will either turn solid and flick off or turn to dust. Magic Cote has gone one step further and created a product that reduces the complicated applications of your average sealer and coating. Our Surface Protection won't require you to timetable with the elements before, during or after application - it can be applied in the rain. It requires only one application and is instant, there is no curing time so can be accessed immediately. By increasing when it can be used and reducing the time you keep people off it significantly reduces those extra hidden costs that come with shutting off areas and forward planning these cleaning and protecting operations.

If you are want to talk about sealants, coatings and our protection products then why not call us on 01246 290001 or email us at info@magiccote.co.uk.