The council of Brunete, a small town near Madrid, launched the campaign to crack down on irresponsible dog owners.

During the course of a week a team of 20 volunteers patrolled the town's streets on the lookout for dog owners who failed to scoop. They then approached the guilty owner and struck up a casual conversation to discover the name of the dog.

"With the name of the dog and the breed it was possible to identify the owner from the registered pet database held in the town hall," explained a spokesman from the council.

The volunteers then scooped up the excrement and packaged it in a box branded with town hall insignia and marked 'Lost Property' and delivered by courier to the pet owner's home.

The campaign, developed by advertising agency McCann,won the 'Sol de Plata' award at the recent Ibero-American Advertising Festival.

In all 147 'express poop' deliveries were made during the course of the week in February and the town with 10,000 residents has since reported a 70 per cent drop in the amount of dog mess found in its streets.

International umbrella trades union organisation UNI is leading the initiative and has been encouraging its affiliates throughout Europe to organise activities - which are planned for countries including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. There will also be some action at railway stations.

Flowers and chocolates are being presented to passengers to pass on to cleaners at their destination airports or railways stations, with a short message about Respect for Cleaners attached. Other activities include film-making, flash mobbing, choirs and dancing.

The campaign accompanies the drawing up of a Cleaners Charter for Europe which all employers and contractors will now be asked to sign. UNI and its affiliates want the bodies and companies that award cleaning contracts to comply with certain standards regarding pay, hours, training, health and safety and dignity. They also want cleaning companies to adhere to the charter.

"Cleaning is essential work. Good cleaning by well trained cleaners on decent wages and fair conditions - that provides a quality service that benefits all," said Nigel Flanagan, senior organiser at UNI. "Clean hospitals, kitchens, offices, hotels, trains, planes, schools - this is in everyone`s interests.

"But where training is poor, equipment is worn out and not replaced, we see lower standards. Where cleaners are treated badly we see poor performance and an unhappy workforce. This campaign is about raising standards of cleaning and raising standards of employment for cleaners."

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The incident occurred when sparks from shoddy electrical wiring ignited the methane gas stored in the septic tank.

The woman was left unharmed due to the construction of the toilet, situated in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. China has been making the switch from traditional hole-in-the-ground toilets to Western-style stalls, and the lavatory in question had low brick walls built around the aperture. These walls protected the woman from the full effects of the explosion.

This is not the first time an exploding toilet has hit the news. Two years ago a woman was taken to hospital when a lavatory in the General Services Administration building in Washington DC blew up. The explosion occurred due to a mechanical failure that led to a high air pressure build-up in the domestic water system.

And in another US incident, four urinals exploded in one day in the washrooms of a General Services Administration building in Memphis, Tennessee. These urinals had an old-fashioned pedal that needed to be depressed after use - but the explosions occurred when users attempted to do so. One washroom user sustained a serious knee injury as a result of the incident.

Female workers are more likely than male workers to say that work-related stress is common (54 per cent versus 49 per cent), as are workers aged 18-54 (53 per cent) compared with workers aged 55+ (44 per cent).

EU-OSHA director Christa Sedlatschek explained: "Forty-one per cent of workers across Europe say that work-related stress is not handled well in their workplace, with 15 per cent telling us it is handled not at all well. We are very much focused on tackling psychosocial risks, such as stress, in the workplace.

"Next year we will launch our Healthy Workplaces Campaign on Managing Stress. The message to be conveyed across European companies of different sizes and sectors is that psychosocial risks can be dealt with in the same logical and systematic way as other health and safety issues."

The most common cause of work-related stress across Europe is perceived to be job insecurity or job reorganisation (72 per cent) followed by hours worked or workload (66 per cent).

Unacceptable behaviour such as bullying or harassment are perceived as a common cause of work-related stress by six in 10 workers (59 per cent). Fewer workers perceive a lack of support from colleagues or superiors (57 per cent), a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities (52 per cent) or limited opportunity to manage work patterns (46 per cent) as common causes of work-related stress.

Group ceo Jeff Gravenhorst said on the sale: "The sale is a result of our continuing streamlining and strengthening of our focus on those activities which are core to our business platform. With focus on mainly pest control and the vision of becoming one of the leading providers in the world, we are convinced that Anticimex will be a very good owner of our pest control activities."

ISS will continue to have pest control activities in emerging markets.

www.issworld.com

The event will run over two days of the exhibition - September 25 and 26 - with speakers from around the world presenting papers.

And there is a special early bird delegate rate of 300 euros if you book by this Saturday, June 15.

One of the industry associations compiling the programme is the German cleaning systems organisation VDMA. Its president Markus Asch explained: "The focus will be on different markets. Major challenges and global trends will be discussed as well as concepts and solutions for the tasks the cleaning sector has to fulfil.

"It is important for us to give delegates high-level first-hand information to take home."

Also taking part in the programme is Hans Simons, president of the European Federation of Cleaning Industries. He said: "The schedule covers job market and energy issues, the relationship to facility management, disinfection and hygiene. It will also address the global development of the cleaning industry along with the image, positioning and development potential of its players."

Speakers will include Dr Adonai Arruda of Higi Serv Holdings in Brazil, Dr JPS Bakshi of India, Simon Chen from ICE in China, Toni D'Andrea of Afidamp Servizi in Italy, Pro Dr med Petra Gastmeier from the Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine in Berlin, Dr Ilham Kadri from Diversey in the USA, Yri Rabitschew of Primex in Russia, Giampaolo Ruffo of Comac in Italy, and Christian Storinggaard of Ecolab in Switzerland.

Delegate fee after the discount expires is 400 euros.

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The government's waste and resources minister Lord de Mauley spoke at the official launch last month. "Local environment quality is an issue that is of utmost importance to local communities, and those that work tirelessly to help keep our local streets and amenities clean and pleasant are often overlooked."

The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) runs the Clean Britain Awards, having taken it over from the British Cleaning Council (BCC) in 2012.

"In 2011/12, local authorities spent over 820 million euros on street cleansing and this major contribution to keeping our public spaces clean and attractive deserves recognition," said CIWM chief executive Steve Lee.

"Research has shown that people are genuinely concerned about issues such as litter and graffiti and that their perceptions of safety and wellbeing are affected by the cleanliness of their local area. Through these awards we want to raise the profile of the excellent services being provided by many councils, and encourage communities and local organisations to get involved too."

Closing date for applications is September 6. For details visit www.cleanbritainawards.co.uk

The report, ‘Diverse cultures at work: ensuring safety and health through leadership and participation’, reveals that there can be serious consequences resulting from a lack of awareness of cultural difference, but that it is possible for organisations to be more inclusive and use diversity to positive effects, as a resource for learning, change and renewal.

Dr Christa Sedlatschek, director of EU-OSHA explained: "A precondition for business success is healthy and motivated employees, especially in times of growing pressure on market competition. Workers with a migration background have to face specific language and cultural challenges, which is also mirrored in higher accident and sick leave rates than national workers."

Poor communication and misunderstanding may arise as a result of cultural differences and can result in tension and stress, reduced job satisfaction and higher staff turnover. An increased occupational safety and health risk may be present, in part because in a multicultural work team, individual perceptions of what is safe may vary.

The report recommends that a constructive safety climate, which is shared by all those in a diverse workforce, needs to be established. The report applies cross-cultural theories to the workplace and demonstrates how leadership and worker participation are key to improving safety and health in culturally diverse workplaces.

It recommends that managers adapt their leadership style, address language barriers, effectively train workers to overcome intercultural issues and nurture an inclusive working environment.

Read it here

This new process predominately uses a full time workforce and the objective is to offer flexible operation to all the company's clients. Principle says Hybrid is designed to suit individual needs and make cleaning shifts flexible - any work considered to be disruptive by the client in any part of the contract will be done out of core hours.

Benefits include having cleaning staff available if the customer needs them during normal office hours for one-offs/special cleans as typically, flexible shift lengths will be between 0600 and 2200.

The aim is to eliminate the night shift and in doing so decrease staff turnover - ensuring staff are highly motivated, happier, better trained and more productive Principle says.

www.principlecleaning.com