Our Quick Response Team members occasionally encounter customers in their travels who ask why they should choose OPG+ for their cleanup needs. They want to know what makes our product or services better than the competition – or may even claim that they have discovered a superior product.
The truth is, there isn’t a short answer to these inquiries because there are a whole assortment of reasons why OPG+ is the better choice. Oftentimes the cleaning agents that people propose as an alternative to OPG+1 are soaps, caustic cleaners, bacteria blends and/or enzyme blends. These are less effective than our formula and in most cases more volatile or toxic. As such, they may require additional personal protective equipment to use them, while posing a threat to the environment.
We’ve written up this article to help explain some of the differences between our formula and other products that claim to produce similar results.
Lower Cost
A common argument that we encounter is that there are other products on the market that are cheaper. This may appear to be true at first glance, but the fact is that you get what you pay for. Even if the initial cost per volume is lower, that means nothing if you have to reapply the product and use two or three times as much to see results. When you do the math, you’ll find that these products ultimately cost more than OPG+1, and require more effort on your part.
Additionally, other enzyme blends are good for some cleaning and deodorizing but on their own DO NOT remove FOG (fats, oils, grease) or oil and fuels (hydrocarbons) from the environment. Instead, these pollutants are broken into smaller particles and washed to a nearby area where they can still do harm. Worse, when washed down drains or into sewers these contaminants can recombine to form big problems. When FOG accumulates inside drainage systems, massive clogs and backups can occur which quickly rack up costs for businesses or homes.
When you consider the potential costs associated with inadequate handling of these hydrocarbons, it’s easy to see that it is cheaper to deal with them correctly from the beginning. Fast, definitive results come from the precise mixture of ingredients that OPG+ has perfected – our blend is way more than just enzymes!
More Effective
When introduced to a spill, the enzymes in OPG+1 immediately bind to hydrocarbons. This means that our formula will follow the spill anywhere that it travels to – including down drains. Biosurfactants then immediately emulsify and solubilize the spill, making it easier to dissolve and break down. This is a key step that allows the pollutant to be more easily eaten by the bacteria in the environment.
Additional components in OPG+1 eliminate the oil, grease, or other contaminants’ ability to adhere to anything. Since the spill no longer attaches to the surroundings – including wildlife, plants, machinery, floors, or anything else – it is less likely to be spread. This feature is important because it helps to contain the mess and protect surrounding areas.
Finally, OPG+1 contains a nutrient blend that grows, stimulates and enhances the native bacteria population. No new bacteria are added to the site, rather the existing population is given a boost. Being native to the spill site, these microbes have an advantage in that they can immediately start to consume and remediate the spill with no need to acclimate to a new environment or compete with other bacteria. This is a problem that competitor products encounter when they introduce nonnative bacteria to try to clean up pollutants.
When other brands use non-indigenous bacteria to clean up hydrocarbons, the microbes have a lot of obstacles to overcome before they can start working. Sometimes these obstacles prevent them from working at all. For example, many of them die immediately when applied to a toxic spill. Common sense tells us that if there are native bacteria already on site, that means those particular microbes have already survived initial contact with the pollutant – and so those are the type of bacteria we should be using to break it down.
It’s also important to note that in nature, the general rule is that indigenous bacteria generally take over non-indigenous bacteria. So whatever new bacteria you introduce to the site not only have to compete with the toxicity of the spill – they also have to survive the attack by the bacteria that were already there. The new environment is not welcoming to non-native bacteria. If they manage to thrive after the initial acclimation, they have other problems to overcome.
Some of the other issues that bacteria have when introduced to a site are conditional. If the temperature varies more than 10 degrees the non-indigenous bacteria go into shock and then have to reacclimate themselves before they start to work on the spill. If nutrient levels are not ideal the non-indigenous bacteria will be unable to sustain life or reproduce to the numbers necessary for breaking down pollutants.
OPG+ offers the only product that packages all of the ingredients needed to bioremediate oil, petroleum and grease spills in one bottle. We’ve perfected our ingredients to encourage native bacteria to flourish, and use pollutants such as oil as a food source. Our patented process leaves behind only CO2 and water.
Eco Friendly
The most popular brands that are often compared to OPG+1 are BT200 Eats oil and Micro-Blaze. Both of these are bioremediation products that include bacteria in their formula. This introduction of non-native microbes to an area is called Bioaugmentation. These products alter the natural balance of microbes and are bad for the environment. Surrounding species are affected by the introduction of microbes that they are not used to. These seemingly small changes can have larger consequences further along the food chain, as every species is interdependent.
The process that OPG+ has perfected uses biostimulation instead. We don’t disrupt the delicate natural balance of life on the molecular level as other products do. Our formula simply grows indigenous bacteria rather than introducing foreign “bugs” or non-indigenous bacteria into the local ecosystem. This process completely eliminates environmental hazards instead of breaking them into smaller particles and dispersing them to nearby areas.
All of these reasons that we have listed are proof that OPG+1 is ultimately less expensive, more effective, and better for the environment than any bacteria “bug” containing products. It is our hope that this information helps our customers feel assured in their decision to choose OPG+ for all of their business and environmental cleanup needs. The OPG+1 formula is the most tested, most effective and efficient bioremediation product in the world.
