Taking your delicates to a professional dry cleaner can be damaging to the environment, your dry-cleaners, and your home. Most professional dry cleaners use a chemical called perchloroethylene (or perc) as a solvent in the dry cleaning process. Human contact with perc can depress the central nervous system, causing headaches, dizziness, nausea, and skin or respiratory irritation. Continued exposure to perc can be harmful to dry cleaners (who are exposed to the chemical day-in and day-out) and also presents a danger to the environment because the toxic remains from the dry cleaning process can run off into the air, water, and soil. Perc remains in clothing after dry cleaning, and can lead to heighten levels of the toxin in the home, putting you and your family in danger.
There are many alternatives, however, and you don’t have to sacrifice ease or cleanliness. You can hand-wash most delicate garments, as long as you are careful. If you prefer the meticulous cleaning of a professional, opt for a dry cleaner who uses either professional wet cleaning or liquid carbon dioxide cleaning. Professional wet cleaners use water as a solvent, along with soaps, conditioners, and detailed knowledge of stains’ pH levels to clean your clothing. Liquid carbon dioxide cleaning uses pressurized carbon dioxide to dissolve stains, but the costs of buying a carbon dioxide cleaning machine is high, so these facilities are not always easy to find. Both these techniques are completely non-toxic and eliminate the health and safety risks associated with perc. Many cleaners are switching over to wet cleaning and carbon dioxide cleaning, especially as states are passing legislation to phase out the use of perchloroethylene.
Take Action / Next Steps
Ready to switch to a green dry cleaner? Sign up for the goal on ecomii Action and track your progress.
See if your local dry cleaner is eco-friendly, or find a Green cleaner in your area with Occidental College Urban and Environmental Policy Institute’s Directory of Green Cleaners
Mail in your garments for Green cleaning with Greener Cleaner
Did you know that many garments with a “Dry clean only” tag can be safely cleaned by hand or in a washing
machine on the “delicate” cycle setting?
Clothing manufacturers often
attach a “dry clean only” label to an article of clothing not because it must be dry-cleaned, but because they
are only allowed to list one cleaning method on the label and they don’t want to be held liable if the article of
clothing is damaged using the suggested cleaning method. Washing your delicates at home can save you from a hefty
dry-cleaning bill—just be sure to check how to best wash the fabric before you try.
Did you know that exposure to the chemical used in dry cleaning (perchloroethylene) can have not only short-term, but
also long-term health effects?
Some of these long term
effects of continued exposure include liver and kidney damage. Perchloroethylene is thought to have carcinogenic qualities,
but this has yet to be proven true in humans.
Did you know that 85% of the more than 35,000 dry cleaners in the United States use perchloroethylene as a solvent in
the dry cleaning process?
Perchloroethylene (which has been classified as a
hazardous pollutant by the EPA) can stay trapped in the atmosphere for weeks, breaking into smaller toxic chemicals that
diminish the ozone layer. It is also known to be toxic to plant life and aquatic animals. With more than 30,000 dry cleaners
currently releasing perc into the air, water, and soil, limiting the amount of perc used in dry cleaning services is
definitely in our best interest.
