At a time of recession or in periods of uncertainty, companies will want to control their costs more tightly.  Yet laboratories and medicals still need to provide their staff with protective clothing such as laboratory coats and isolation gowns both when starting new staff or when replacing soiled existing laboratory coats or isolation gowns.  

New poly  laboratory cotton coats cost around £15 each; since three are needed for each employee (one on, one in the wash and one spare) this is a capital outlay of £45.00 per employee.  As an example, clothing 50 operators with laboratory coats would cost 50 x £45= £2250.  To this should be added the cost of laundering these laboratory coats which could be between £2 and £5 a time, plus the time and cost of administering the laboratory coats laundry contract.  The frequency of this laundering is determined by the rate of laboratory coat soiling and cleanliness required, which could be daily or weekly or longer in low grade areas.  As an example, 50 laboratory coats laundered each week for one year would cost  50 x £3.50[ave] laundry x 52 weeks = £8750. 

Once the purchase cost of £2250 is included, then the total annual cost of using poly laboratory cotton coats for 50 employees = £11,000

By using disposable laboratory coats, the capital outlay is much lower.  A disposable laboratory coat typically costs around £1.40 for a good quality laboratory coat and therefore 50 operators could be clothed with laboratory coats for  50 x £1.40 = £70.  Naturally the soil rate or replacement frequency of these laboratory coats will be the same as for poly cotton laboratory coats but without the ongoing cost and aggravation of laundering. As an example 50 coats x £1.40 x 52 weeks = £3500 per year.

A company employing 50 staff using disposable laboratory coat could therefore save themselves £11,000 - £3500 = £7500 per year. This is a significant savings in their cash flow.  In addition, during periods of uncertainty, purchasing disposable laboratory  coats as needed would mean that laboratory coats are not left unused when staff are laid off, nor laundry contacts left ticking up the costs in the background as "no washes"