GB2158701A

GB2158701A - Lavatory cleaning tool

Info

Publication number: GB2158701A
Application number: GB08510679A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Michael Tosh
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1984-05-02
Filing date: 1985-04-26
Publication date: 1985-11-20
Also published as: GB2158701B; GB8510679D0

Abstract

Both the handle portion and the cleaning head portion of a lavatory cleaning tool are made of materials which are soluble or degradable in water, so that the whole tool may be disposed of after use by flushing the lavatory. The cleaning head and handle may be made from the same or different materials. The cleaning head may be made from fibrous cotton, leaves of tissue paper, cardboard, starched material, natural vegetation, peat, wool, felt, synthetic fibres or synthetic foam. The handle may be made from baked flour, cardboard, plaster, starched material, Portland cement, or baked clay. Additives such as disinfectants, foaming and cleaning agents, perfumes, colourants may be incorporated in the tool.

Description

SPECIFICATION Lavatory brush The present invention relates to a lavatory brush, which term is used herein to include any implement for cleaning the interior of a vessel containing water.

There have been many proposals over the years to provide an alternative to the conventional re-usable lavatory brush, to enable the head portion of the lavatory brush to be disposed of immediately after use. These prior proposals have involved the use of a water-degradable head for the lavatory brush together with a permanent handle having some means by which the water-degradable head may be mechanically secured to the handle during use. In some cases the water-degradable head is located on the permanent handle by the contour of some shaping means or a cavity on the handle, and in other proposals the perment handle has been provided with some means of clamping to engage the water-degradable head, the clamping means being releasable after use of the brush to leave the water-degradable head in the water of the lavatory pan after use.

To the Applicant's knowledge, none of these prior proposals has proved commercially acceptable. The reasons for this are not known but it is thought that they may be due to the difficulty of satisfactorily securing a water-degradable head to a permenent handle, and to the disinclination of the user to have to place a new water-degradable head on the end of a handle which has already been used.

According to the present invention there is provided a lavatory brush comprising a handle portion and a head portion, each of the handle portion and the head portion being made of materials which either disintergrate or dissolve in water.

A lavatory brush in accordance with the present invention is therefore totally disposable immediately after use.

Preferably both the handle portion and the head portion are made of materials which disintergrate in water. Conveniently the handle portion and the head portion are made of different materials and secured to one another by means which dissolves in water.

Alternatively the lavatory brush according to the present Invention may be formed with the handle portion and the head portion made from the same material, but with sebsequent chemical treatment of either the handle portion to impart stiffness or the head portion to provide flexibility for brushing.

In one embodiement of the present invention there is provided a lavatory brush comprising a handle portion which is an elongated member formed of baked flour, and a head portion based on cotton, the head portion being secured to the handle portion by a water-based adhesive.

In this embodiment the handle portion may be that form of edible product known as a grissini stick. The cotton head portion may be a form similar to a tampon, for example the tampon which is sold under the trade mark TAMPAX, or in a form similar to the products which are sold as disposable nappies for babies, although other cotton fibrous material may be employed.

In another embodiment of the present invention there is provided a lavatory brush comprising a handle portion which is a cardboard tubular member and a head portion comprising leaves of tissue paper adhered to one another and the the handle portion by a water-based adhesive.

The cardboard tubular handle portion may be a segmented cardboard tube formed from a plurality of segments of each of two cardboard tubes of different diameters, or it may be a moulded cardboard tube.

A lavatory brush in accordance with the present invention may further include additives for example colouring materials, disinfectants, cleaning agents, or perfumes.

After use of a lavatory brush in accordance with the present invention to clean a lavatory pan, the brush is simply left standing in the water in the pan until the whole lavatory brush has disintergrated or dissolved to an extent sufficient for its remains to be flushed away in the usual manner.

A variety of alternative materials may be used for the handle portion and the head portion of a lavatory brush in accordance with the present invention. For example the handle portion may alternatively be made of plaster, starched material, Portland cement or baked clay. The head portion may be made, for example, of other paper, cardboard, starched material, natural vegetation, peat, wool, synthetic fibres, synthetic foam or felt.

As already stated above, the lavatory brush may be formed as a whole from any suitable material, i.e. one which will either dissolve in water or absorb water and subsequently disintergrate. Examples of such materials are the full range of materials mentioned above, i.e. plaster, paper, cardboard, starch, natural vegetation, peat, wool, synthetic fibres, Portland cement, cotton, synthetic foam, clay, flour, felt.

The manufacture of parts of the lavatory brush, or the brush as a whole when it is made in one piece from a single material, may be effected by known methods appropriate to the materials being used, for example, moulding, extrusion, machining, hydration, theremosetting, compression, chemical reaction, baking, glueing, stitching, casting, rolling and vacuum forming.

In addition to the additives already mentioned there may be included in either the handle portion or the head portion of a lavatory brush in accordance with the present invention materials which are air entrainants, hygroscopics, expansion particles, effervescents, solubles and water reactive chemicals.

There will now be described by way of example methods of making preferred embodiments of the present invention.

In the presently preferred embodiments of the invention the handle consists of cardboard formed from an open texture filter paper. In one method of making a cardboard handle, a sheet of open tex ture filter paper is caused to absorb water and is then rolled around a steel rod until there are about five or six thicknesses of soft, soggy paper on the rod. The rolled paper on the steel rod is then hot dried, and the resultant firm tube of paper similar to cardboard is removed from the steel rod. Conveniently the tubular handle thus obtained is approximately 26 cms. in length and has a diameter of 1.5 cms.

The head is formed from standard tissue paper using approximately fifty leaves having dimensions of 7 cms, by 2 cms. A pad of approximately fifty leaves of such standard tissue paper is impregnated with a water-soluble glue such as sodium silicate, and the pad is adhered to one side of the tubular cardboard handle by this water-soluble glue, and the whole allowed to dry.

It is found that the resulting lavatory brush has sufficient strength to be used to clean thoroughly a lavatory pan. After such use the lavatory brush is left in the water in the pan and, in approximately ten minutes, the brush will have disintergrated sufficiently for its remains to be flushed away.

In an alternative construction the tubular cardboard handle may be constructed from two prepared cardboard tubes of different diameters selected such that one tube will slide within the other. Each pre-prepared cardboad tube is cut into tubular sections approximately 2.5 cms. in length and these sections are assembled to form a segmented cardboard tube handle by placing a section of larger tube over a half of a section of smaller tube, the other half of which is covered by a second section of the bigger tube. The handle is built up from approximately six sections or segments of each of the two cardboard tubes and the disposable head is formed and secured to one side of the tubular handle from leaves of standard tissue paper as described above.

The use of the tubular handle enables additives to be readily incorporated within the tubular handle. For example disinfectants, foaming agents, cleaning agents, perfumes and/or colouring materials can be included within the tubular handle or, alternatively or additionally, within the leaves of tissue paper forming the head of the brush.

It will be appreciated that any one of the materials mentioned for the head portion of the lavatory brush may be used with any material selected for the handle portion. For example, a wad or mass of cotton fibres or a piece of flexible foamed plastic may be adhered as the head portion to a tubular cardboard handle portion.

Claims

1. A lavatory brush comprising a handle portion and a head portion secured to the handle portion, each of the handle portion and the head portion being made of materials which either disintergrate or dissolve in water.

2. A lavatory brush according to Claim 1, wherein both the handle portion and the head portion are made of materials which disintergrate in water.

3. A lavatory brush acording to Claim 1 or Claim 2, wherein the handle portion and the head portion are secured to one another by means which dissolves in water.

4. A lavatory brush comprising a handle portion which is an elongated member formed of baked flour, and a head portion comprising cotton fibres, the head portion being secured to the handle portion by a water-based adhesive.

5. A lavatory brush comprising a handle portion which is a cardboard tubular member and a head portion comprising leaves of tissue paper adhered to one another and to the handle portion by a water-based adhesive.

6. A lavatory brush according to Claim 5, wherein the cardboard tubular member is formed from a plurality of segments of each of two cardboard tubes of different diameters such that a segment of cardboard tube of smaller diameter engages and supports two segments of cardboard tube of larger diameter.

7. A lavatory brush according to Claim 5, wherein the cardboard tubular member is formed by moulding open texture filter paper about a cylindrical rod member.

8. A lavatory brush according to any one of Claims 4 to 7 wherein the water-based adhesive is sodium silicate.

9. A lavatory brush the whole of which is disposable through degradation in water after use, substantially as hereinbefore described.