Warminster Business Leads Way To Eco-friendly Dry Cleaning

Sue Kil, owner of Ivy Cleaners in Warminster, has seen the dry cleaning industry go through many changes in her 28 years in the business.  And five years ago, she realized that she wanted to make a major shift in her business practice – one that would benefit herself, her employees and her customers.

Check out your closets, drawers and trunks.  If you are like most Americans, you probably have several pieces of clothing that cannot be thrown in with the regular weekly laundry.  Perhaps you have detected the distinct whiff of chemicals when you picked up your freshly dry cleaned blazer or wool coat the last time you visited your local dry cleaner, but many of us think nothing about it because we have become so familiar with that odor. It comes with the package, just like paper-covered wire hangers and plastic bags.

But that smell is something to be concerned about.

If you have ever taken your clothes to a professional dry cleaner, they were most likely cleaned with dangerous chemicals.  Now, consumers have options when it comes to cleaning clothes with the dreaded “Dry Clean Only” label – options that do not harm laundry workers, send toxins into the environment, or bring dangerous chemicals into your home.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 85 percent of the more than 35,000 dry cleaners in the United States use perchloroethylene (or perc, for short), as a solvent in the dry cleaning process. 

Perc is a synthetic, volatile organic compound (VOC) that poses significant health risks to humans and a threat to the environment. Even minimal contact with perc can cause dizziness, headaches, drowsiness, nausea, and skin and respiratory irritation. Prolonged perc exposure has been linked to liver and kidney damage, as well as several forms of cancer. Perc was identified as a “probable” human carcinogen by California’s Proposition 65.

Perc can enter the body through drinking water contamination, dermal exposure, or most frequently, inhalation. This is not only a health hazard and environmental justice issue for workers in the dry cleaning business, but for consumers who bring home clothes laden with perc. The EPA has found that clothes dry cleaned with perc can elevate levels of the toxin throughout a home and especially in the room where the garments are stored. Nursing mothers exposed to perc may excrete it in their milk, placing their infants at risk.

Perc is not only hazardous for people who work in dry cleaning shops or bring home dry cleaned clothes. Perc can also get into our air, water, and soil during the cleaning, purification, and waste disposal phases of dry cleaning, according to the EPA.

But you do not have to expose yourself or your family to perc anymore, at least not as a result of dry cleaning.

Warminster’s own Ivy Cleaners was the first local dry cleaning establishment that stopped using perc, the chemical of choice for the dry cleaning industry since the 1940s.  Kil switched her cleaning process to a non-toxic hydrocarbon cleaning method after she became concerned about the environmental and health hazards of perc.

“It’s more expensive – nearly double the cost for the machines,” Kil said. “But I’m so happy with the change, and so are my customers.”

Kil says that the hydrocarbon method is not only safer for the environment and her staff and customers, it is gentler on clothes.  In particular, Kil says her cleaners are better able to work with delicate fabrics, beaded or sequined items, and wedding gowns.  Perc can dissolve threads and fabrics, destroying some garments.  Hydrocarbon cleaning is a better choice, Kil contends.

While Ivy Cleaners markets itself as “organic,” the term “organic” has no legal definition where dry cleaners are concerned, and its use can refer to any number of cleaning processes – organic or not.  The hydrocarbon process is technically organic because, in chemistry terms, any compound based on the element carbon is an “organic” compound.

While hydrocarbon cleaning methods are less toxic than traditional perc options many experts consider hydrocarbon cleaning to be anything but earth friendly. Hydrocarbon is a petroleum-based solvent, and it carries all the environmental concerns of petroleum – most importantly, it is a major source of greenhouse gases. 

Hydrocarbon is a volatile organic compound (VOC), so it still creates environmental issues.  Some environmental groups and industry insiders dispute the use of the term “organic” in relation to hydrocarbon cleaning.

Two other alternative cleaning methods rise to the top in terms of environmental and health impacts— professional wet cleaning and liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) cleaning.  Neither of these methods creates toxicity issues.

Professional wet cleaning is a safe, energy-efficient method of cleaning “Dry Clean Only” clothes that uses water as a solvent—rather than chemicals—with a combination of special soaps and conditioners.  Professionally wet cleaned clothes are laundered in a computer-controlled washer and dryer that gently clean clothes, sometimes spinning as slowly as six revolutions a minute (a typical home washing machine may rotate clothes several dozen times per minute).

Because wet cleaning is free of VOCs, it eliminates health and safety risks, as well as environmental risks associated with traditional dry cleaning. As an added benefit, the equipment and operating costs are lower. Just about every garment that can be dry cleaned can be wet cleaned, according to the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute.

Liquid carbon dioxide cleaning uses pressurized liquid CO2 in place of perc, in conjunction with other cleaning agents. CO2 is a nonflammable and nontoxic gas that occurs naturally in the environment. It becomes a liquid solvent under high pressure, able to dissolve dirt, fats, and oils in clothing. This method’s downside is that, while the CO2 itself is both cheap and abundant, the cost of a CO2 dry cleaning machine is very high—a new machine costs around $40,000. Few dry cleaners are adopting this technique as a result of the significant capital outlay.

The shift towards green dry cleaning is headed by California, which committed to phasing out perc by 2023, offering grant money to cleaners that switch from perc to CO2 or wet cleaning. States like Massachusetts and New York have passed or are considering similar legislation.

Be wary of initiatives like the International Fabricare Institute’s “Certified Environmental Dry Cleaner” program, which means that the cleaner has passed a test demonstrating that they know how to operate their facility in an environmentally responsible way but says nothing about the cleaning methods they may be using.

Next time you spill coffee on your “Dry Clean Only” silk blouse or necktie, remember you now have options that will not put your health or the environment at risk. The EPA offers a nationwide list of cleaners using wet and/or CO2 cleaning methods.