Miraclean

Everything from Marmite jars to vinegar bottles, they all need to be cleaned, and here is how it’s done, without a rubber glove in sight.

It is easy to take for granted the myriad products we buy that come in bottles and containers, assuming that these have all been properly cleaned. Well, here’s the proof, as Hills of Hull provide us with an overview of the revolutionary cleaning machine they designed in the early 1980s for just such cleaning, the Miraclean. Here it cleans Hammond sauce bottles, Guinness bottles, wine bottles, vials for medicines and bottles of pop.

This promotional film was made by Bradford film producers C H Wood. The company of Thomas Hill Engineering, also known as Hills of Hull, are still manufacturing similar machinery, although they seem to have dropped the brand name of Miraclean and replaced it with Invertaclean, possibly either because it is now a different design or because other companies also use the brand name of Miraclean. The soft drinks company of George Barraclough (Gee Bees) of Bradford also still exists – not to be confused with Victorian era Wine & Spirit merchants J Barraclough & Co – though the Hammond factory in Leeds moved to Bradford in 1985. Hammond took over the production of Yorkshire Relish in 1959 (now owned by Unigate).