Greenwashing: Safer Alternatives to Dry Cleaning

Mori Mickelson was breastfeeding her 11-month-old son in the bedroom of her New York apartment in August 1997 when she began to get a headache, dizziness, burning in her lungs, and a feeling of losing consciousness. She smelled a familiar sweet chemical odor coming through her bedroom window from the dry cleaner located in her building directly below. The smell was perc, or perchloroethylene, a toxic organochlorine solvent used by most dry cleaners. Mori's husband called the fire department, and the family and other residents immediately evacuated the building.

Originally developed as a degreaser for metals, perc has been classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. An October 1995 study by Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports, found that levels of perc in apartments above New York City dry cleaners pose "clear hazards to the residents' health."

Approximately 100,000 people live above or work in dry cleaners in New York City alone, according to the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH). "New York City tells dry cleaners they can be here. Yet elsewhere in New York State, locating dry cleaners in buildings with more than three residences is simply not allowed," says Suzanne Mattei, an environmental attorney and Assistant Deputy Advocate for the City of New York. And it's far from just a New York City problem. Greenpeace reports that an estimated one million-plus people in the U.S. are at risk due to elevated levels of perc in their homes. The reason: Scientists have linked perc to nervous system, kidney, liver and reproductive disorders in lab animals, and higher risk of cancer among dry-cleaning workers.

In January 1996, just after Mori Mickelson learned she was pregnant, the NYS DOH began a pilot study to determine perc levels in residents living above dry cleaners. Researchers tested Mori and found perc in her blood, urine and breast tissue. After she gave birth, they tested her breastmilk and found perc. Dr. Judith S. Schreiber, a researcher with the NYS DOH, predicts cancer risks of 1 in 5,000 for infants breastfed by women who live in buildings that also house dry cleaners. In August 1996, after intense pressure by Mori, her husband Danny O'Brien, and NYC Public Advocate Mark Green's office, "The Department of Health sealed the machines downstairs so that they couldn't be used -- four days after our son was born," says Mori. This action by the City did not solve the problem. Although the cleaner was forced to send clothing to an off-site facility, perc remains on the premises. The fumes that forced Mori out of her home in August 1997 resulted from an accidental spill of more than a gallon of perc left inside one machine.

Even bringing dry-cleaned clothes home is risky. In the 1980s, EPA studies found that people who reported visiting a dry-cleaning shop showed twice as much perc in their breath, on average, as other people. The effective half-life (the time required to eliminate half the quantity) of perc in the breath is about 21 hours. EPA also found that levels of perc remained elevated in a home for as long as one week after placing newly dry-cleaned clothes in a closet. And Consumers Union, in a March 1996 report, found that people who wear freshly dry-cleaned clothes, like a jacket and shirt, every week over a 40-year period, could inhale enough perc "to measurably increase their risk of cancer" -- by as much as 150 times what is considered "negligible risk."

Dry-cleaning workers have it worst of all, according to Eric Frumin, health and safety director of UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees). Frumin cites a 1994 study performed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) that found the risk of esophageal cancer for dry-cleaning workers to be three to seven times higher than the population at large. UNITE is pressing both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the EPA to take a stricter position regarding perc dangers, and is calling on government officials to help dry cleaners phase out the use of perc. In the book Toxic Deception (Birch Lane Press, 1996) Dan Fagin and Marianne Lavelle document EPA's "paralysis on this long-recognized hazard," noting that EPA officials, well-aware of the evidence against perc, worried "that action to curb perc ... could have a devastating effect on the dry-cleaning industry." In fact, according to Toxic Deception, EPA has delayed making public its own risk assessment of perc for several years due to industry pressure.

Even after perc is phased out at a site, the chemical can linger. In 1995, the New York City Board of Education leased a dry cleaning plant in Harlem to be converted into an elementary school. Although the building has a double concrete floor and the dry cleaner had not operated for over a year, the City found in the spring of 1996 that perc had saturated the soil 20 feet below the concrete and was contaminating the air at almost five times the state's safety standard. After venting perc fumes outside and retesting in summer by the state, which was considering designating the building a Superfund site, the City deemed the school safe and opened it for the 1997 school year. In October 1997, following intense community pressure, the school closed indefinitely, when tests found perc levels above state guidelines. "It was very risky to put those kids in there," says Assistant Deputy Advocate Mattei. "In my opinion, the tests were not representative of actual school year conditions, when windows are closed and the heat is turned on." In fact, levels of perc had risen since summer.

Dry Cleaning: A Dirty Business

Dry cleaners throw all clothing -- regardless of fabric type or construction -- into a machine containing gallons of perc, which removes fat, grease and oil without shrinking fabric or causing dyes to bleed. EPA estimates that about one-third of all dry cleaners still use a separate washer and dryer, which allow perc to evaporate into the air when clothes are transferred between the two. Newer machinery keeps clothing in a single machine, which agitates it in the perc bath, spins out excess solvent, and tumbles dry. The dirt is dumped as hazardous waste, and the perc vapor is supposed to be captured and recycled. But cleaners using these machines still release perc fumes into the air, according to Consumers Union, possibly due to faulty equipment and/or noncompliance with regulations.

Until the mid-1980s, it wasn't illegal for dry cleaners to simply pour spent perc down the drain. As a result, perc has soaked into soil through sewer system leaks and is now a major groundwater contaminant in more than one-quarter of U.S. water supplies.

So, How to Clean Our Clothes?

Despite what labels say, dry cleaning is not the only answer. Some cleaners are phasing in an alternative process called professional wet cleaning, which has been around for over 50 years. Wet cleaning involves customized treatment for each garment using soap and water. Depending on type of fabric and construction, clothing is either machine-washed in water with special computerized machines, steam cleaned, or hand washed; then it is machine- or air-dried, pressed and finished. Wet cleaning can be used on almost any garment, and, on average, prices are the same as at a dry cleaner.

In October 1993, an EPA analysis of wet cleaning revealed it to be equally effective as, and financially competitive with, dry-cleaning processes. Wet cleaning's higher labor costs are offset by lower equipment and hazardous waste disposal costs. Existing dry cleaners may add wet-cleaning methods as an extra service -- called a mixed approach -- or invest in a total conversion. There are currently about 150 mixed and full wet-cleaning operations across the country (see Resources).

Wet cleaners can also make good investments for community development groups, providing income, jobs and training to areas with higher unemployment. The Fifth Avenue Committee, a nonprofit organization in Brooklyn, New York, established a for-profit subsidiary to operate an Ecomat™ franchise shop, which opened in September 1997. Other community groups plan to partner in an environmentally sound, for-profit garment cleaner in Mercer County, New Jersey next spring.

With funding from EPA, the nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) created a demonstration project in spring 1995 with a wet-cleaning shop in Chicago, The Greener Cleaner, to help dry cleaners move away from perc. "Consumer satisfaction was great even in the early days, when we shrunk some of their clothes!" says Sylvia Ewing-Hoover, pollution prevention manager of CNT. "It showed that people really wanted an environmental alternative."

CNT wants to see "Professional Clean" or "Handwash" labels sewed into clothing, instead of "Dry Clean Only." That "federal law permits -- and even encourages -- DRY CLEAN labels in ... garments that could be safely cleaned in water" illustrates the effectiveness of the industry campaign for greater use of perc, Fagin and Lavelle write. In early 1997, Consumer Reports found that old-fashioned machine and hand washing of clothing "often work well, can save a lot of money, and avoids exposure to health hazards" (see Box, p. 2).

Another less toxic alternative to dry cleaning, using carbon dioxide (CO2), has recently been developed. CO2 gas, a benign, inexhaustible resource -- often used to decaffeinate coffee -- is liquefied in a high-pressure washing machine. After washing, the CO2 returns to a gaseous state, and dirt is the only thing left to be disposed of. Two companies which are commercializing the technology expect to make the systems available to cleaners in 1998.

Greenwashing On the Dry

A few weeks after the perc spill, Mori Mickelson noticed that another neighborhood dry cleaner had a neon "earth friendly cleaner" sign, picturing mountains and evergreens, hanging in the window. Mori asked the owner if that meant they don't use perc; the dry cleaner answered that she does. The Neighborhood Cleaners Association International (NCA), an industry association, has developed another sign for dry cleaners, declaring, "We are a cleaner cleaner." Again, they still use perc, though consumers might easily think both signs speak for truly cleaner alternatives.