Week 4 - "Green" dry cleaning

Planet saver:

Money saver: (about the same whether you do or don't)

Time saver: (about the same whether you do or don't)

I wear a suit to work every day, and I've noticed a chemical smell every once in a while. For example, if a little rain gets on me, I end up walking around with a cloud of chemical stink floating around me. I feel like a bio-hazard. The way I figure, that can't be good for the clothes, for me, or for the environment at large.

In the next city over, there's a dry cleaner called Your Valet that touts itself as Utah's first environmentally responsible cleaner. It uses a silicone-based solvent made by GreenEarth Cleaning that purports to be completely environmentally responsible. According to the website, the solvent essentially cleans using the "same natural sand the earth has been creating for over six billion years." I wonder if the marketing department wrote that?

In truth, I haven't been able to get to the bottom of whether it really is environmentally friendly or not. Conventional dry cleaning has real potential to be harmful - it uses perchloroethylene, which breaks down into several toxic substances in the open air and is also toxic to plants. At high levels of exposure, like what dry-cleaning workers in a poorly maintained shop could be exposed to, it poses a cancer risk. At extremely high levels, however, so does silicone-based solvent. Additionally, because GreenEarth Cleaning is a relatively new product, no one is willing to go out on a limb and confirm or refute its claims of environmental friendliness.

The EPA website won't say whether they trust it or not, but on the page about environmentally responsible dry cleaning, silicone-based solvents aren't discussed. Instead, the page says that some of the most important factors that would qualify cleaners to call themselves "green" are whether they have new machines that stop leaks and keep the chemicals contained, and whether they dispose of their waste products properly. It seems to me that there is potential for harm with GreenEarth cleaners, since if a cleaner thinks the product is safe, they would just pour the solvent down the drain when they finished. If silicone-based solvents really aren't safe, the harm done would be greater than a conventional dry cleaner who disposes of waste properly.

There is no sign in the window at dry cleaners telling you if they're environmentally responsible (and if there is you probably shouldn't trust it), but you can ask the cleaners about the processes they use. Two things the EPA recommends:

1. Ask your cleaner about her/his cleaning methods, safety and maintenance practices, and how s/he handles her/his solvent waste streams.
2. If you smell solvent when you enter a cleaning shop, you might want to consider going somewhere else as solvent odors can indicate improper processing or solvent use.

One process that seems to get positive reviews from all corners is professional wet-cleaning, which uses computerized processes to allow water-based cleaning of dry-clean-only garments. No one offers wet-cleaning around here, but you can look for wet cleaners in your area here.

Findings

I haven't noticed a chemical smell since I went to the new place, and my clothes seem pretty clean, though they didn't get out the carrot stain from my daughter's baby food, even after I pointed it out specifically. The place we had been going seemed a little run down, and I didn't really trust it. I think I'll go back to Your Valet again and see if they do a good job next time. They were comparably priced to the other cleaners.