Bye-Bye, Dry Cleaning: Green Your Dry Cleaning

We often think fine clothing must be dry cleaned, and for delicate and shrinkage-prone fabrics, alternatives are scarce.

January/February 2009
By Ken Hoyt 
GoodToKnow-Jan-Feb08-7
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Keep your blazers fresher longer with a soft brush and our homemade “clothing cocktail.”
Photo by Ken Hoyt
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Dry cleaning is notorious for its heavy use of chemicals and, over time, can rob wools and silks of the oils and proteins that naturally protect garments. Unless you have very soiled or stained items, put off visits to the dry cleaners by freshening clothing at home with these three easy steps.

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Brush it up!
The valets and lady’s maids in period movies are always brushing clothing. In fact, it’s still a great way to remove surface soil. Go over the garment with a soft brush or a microfi ber cloth before storing it.

Wrinkle Removal
Steam clothing with a home garment steamer (available in clothing, department or big box stores, starting around $25).  They smooth rumples and wrinkles with ease and heat up the fabric, killing off microbial beasties. (Let garments cool and dry completely before wearing.)

Clothing Cocktail
Every costumer knows this trick: Fill a spray bottle with cheap vodka (not rubbing alcohol; it has additives). Spritz your garment, concentrating on areas where perspiration has collected. The alcohol kills the bacteria that cause odor, then dries quickly.

A Better Clean
For the sake of the environment and your clothing, choose a cleaner that uses the pressurized CO2 process; they usually advertise themselves as “green” or “organic” cleaners, but be sure to ask about their process because these labels are unregulated. Almost all others use perchloroethylene, a neurotoxin and respiratory, skin and eye irritant that the EPA deems a “probable human carcinogen.” Plus, according to the EPA, it breaks down into other chemicals that contaminate air and groundwater, and deplete the ozone layer.

Hand Washing
Hand wash wool and silk sweaters and simple, unlined garments, but don’t clean structured garments (anything with a lining and shoulder pads) with water, as it may distort their shape.

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  • Don Hall 5/7/2009 1:41:35 PM

    Alternative Dry Cleaner Listing
    don hall

    For Silicon Cleaning, the GreenEarth site will help you locate a facility in the US, Canada and Japan, here.

    In Canada, the Center for Pollution Prevention has their own locator.

    For Carbon dioxide locations you will need to look for a Hanger's Dry Cleaning franchise near you (in the US, Canada and Europe).

  • Don Hall 5/7/2009 1:40:38 PM

    don hall ... Dry Cleaner Perc Blasting comment cont'd

    The California example

    While Europe has begun regulating dry cleaning operations using perc under the EU VOC directive, only California has instituted an outright ban of future perc use.

    This January the California Air Resources Board (ARB) adopted regulations to require dry cleaners to phase out perc by 2023. Beginning on January 1, 2008 no new perc-using machines will be installed in California with a complete ban of their use going into effect in January 1, 2023.

    There is no national copycatting of California's example. In fact, while the EPA advises consumers to "keep exposure to perchloroethylene emissions from newly dry-cleaned materials to a minimum", they have refused to back a proposal to phase out all perc machines.

    The Sierra club is sueing them for non-compliance with the Clean Air Act. "EPA's failure to take an obvious and cost-effective step to protect millions of at risk Americans against a known toxin reflects a widespread breakdown in the agency's air toxics program."

    Last July, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued an indictment of the EPA's failure to follow the Clean Air Act and one month later, a federal court found EPA's air toxics efforts "grossly delinquent."

  • Don Hall 5/7/2009 1:37:32 PM

    Whoa there young fella ... Perc is never the best answer in this business.
    Consider the tons of old equipment still spinning and the horrible side effects from the run-off. Maybe jerry isn't that young, but the comment demands brutal review!

    * "Carbon dioxide. This method gave the best results... The clothing didn't change shape, shrink, or stretch. There was little or no change in the color or the texture of the fabrics; only one silk shirt faded slightly after the third cleaning.
    * "Silicone-based. ...This method was almost as good. All three cleaners did a good job on the blouse. Two of the three skirts came out well, although pleats were not pressed as tidily as they could have been. One skirt shrank slightly. All three jackets showed moderate to severe pilling.
    * "Wet-cleaning. This method left the lambswool jacket severely pilled in all three cases. Two jackets looked as though they had not been pressed. One shrank. The sizing was removed from one skirt, so it looked limp. Another skirt shrank from a size 14 to about a size 10. The silk blouses took to water fairly well: Only one showed slight fading.
    * "Percholorethylene. These results surprised us, considering that perc is so widely used. The lambswool jacket was severely pilled. The skirt shrank almost one size. The silk blouse faded and had a white, frosted look. This is the only method that resulted in an odor being left on the clothes."

    ONLY CALIFORNIA is setting down the law on Perc based dry-cleaning.

    The problem doesn't just end with your clothes or for those living near dry cleaners, 70% of all perc used ends up in the environment where it contaminates both ground- and drinking water.

    According to a government survey, perc now contaminates up to 25% of US drinking water and at least 1.2 million Americans are exposed to perc in drinking water at levels that exceed safety limits.

    The California example

    While Europe has begun re

  • Jerry Pozniak 2/16/2009 9:00:56 PM

    Modern dry cleaning equipment will not allow the garments to be removed from the machine until the levels are reduced to less than 100 ppm. Properly dry cleaned clothes WILL NOT have the dry cleaning solution left in the fabric after cleaning.

    Do you realize how many chemicals are used in the processing of cotton or how harsh fabric dyes are? Brand new clothes are exposed to chemicals that are far more dangerous than dry cleaning.

    CO2 dry cleaning is great, but it does not do a good job of cleaning; when you bring in clothes to a dry cleaner you do expect them to come back clean.

  • Jerry Pozniak 2/16/2009 9:00:04 PM

    Modern dry cleaning equipment will not allow the garments to be removed from the machine until the levels are reduced to less than 100 ppm. Properly dry cleaned clothes WILL NOT have the dry cleaning solution left in the fabric after cleaning.

    Do you realize how many chemicals are used in the processing of cotton or how harsh fabric dyes are? Brand new clothes are exposed to chemicals that are far more dangerous than dry cleaning.

    CO2 dry cleaning is great, but it does not do a good job of cleaning; when you bring in clothes to a dry cleaner you do expect them to come back clean.

  • Holly 1/8/2009 4:49:25 PM

    While you're at it, green not only the dry cleaning of your business clothes, but the making of your business cards.

    Just avail yourself of some creativity and either a rubber stamp or an ink-jet printer. Here's a quick-'n-dirty post on making quick, easy, eco-friendly business cards:

    http://www.ecomingler.com/2009/01/08/green-business-cards/

  • Holly 1/8/2009 4:47:17 PM

    While you're at it, green not only the dry cleaning of your business clothes, bu the making of your business cards.

    Just avail yourself of some creativity and either a rubber stamp or an ink-jet printer. Here's a quick-'n-dirty post on making quick, easy, eco-friendly business cards:

    http://www.ecomingler.com/2009/01/08/green-business-cards/

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