ECL vs MMM

Ecolab Inc.

Ecolab Inc. provides water, hygiene, and infection prevention solutions and services worldwide. Its Global Industrial segment offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, petroleum, and petrochemical industries. The company's Global Institutional & Specialty segment provides specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, government and education, and retail industries. Its Global Healthcare & Life Sciences segment offers specialized cleaning and sanitizing products to the healthcare, personal care, and pharmaceutical industries, such as infection prevention and surgical solutions, and end-to-end cleaning and contamination control solutions under the Ecolab, Microtek, and Anios brand names. The company's Other segment offers pest elimination services to detect, eliminate, and prevent pests, such as rodents and insects in restaurants, food and beverage processors, educational and healthcare facilities, hotels, quick service restaurant and grocery operations, and other institutional and commercial customers. This segment also provides colloidal silica for binding and polishing applications in semiconductor, catalyst, and aerospace component manufacturing, as well as chemical industries; and products and services that manage wash process through custom designed programs, premium products, dispensing equipment, water and energy management, and reduction, as well as real time data management. It sells its products through field sales and corporate account personnel, distributors, and dealers. The company was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota.

3M Company

3M Company develops, manufactures, and markets various products worldwide. It operates through four business segments: Safety and Industrial, Transportation and Electronics, Health Care, and Consumer. The Safety and Industrial segment offers personal safety products, industrial adhesives and tapes, abrasives, closure and masking systems, electrical markets, automotive aftermarket, and roofing granules to industrial, electrical, and safety markets. The Transportation and Electronics provides electronics, such as display materials and systems, electronic materials solutions; automotive and aerospace, and commercial solutions; advanced materials; and transportation safety products to transportation and electronic original equipment manufacturer customers. The Health Care segment offers medical and surgical supplies, skin health and infection prevention products, oral care, separation and purification sciences, health information systems, drug delivery systems, and food safety products to healthcare industry. The Consumer segment provides home improvement, home care, and consumer health care products, as well as stationery and office supplies to various consumers. This segment is also involved in the retail auto care business. It offers its products through various e-commerce and traditional wholesalers, retailers, jobbers, distributors, and dealers, as well as directly to users. 3M Company has a strategic collaboration with Merry Maids in residential cleaning sector; and collaborations with The Infectious Disease Research Institute and Duke Human Vaccine Institute to create a vaccine candidate with potential to provide protection against multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota.