A perc you'll be happy to lose

How to make your clothes clean and green.

Josey Duncan | June 2008 issue

Say goodbye to your perchloroethylene, the nasty carcinogen used in the dry cleaning process. Perc is known to harm both dry-cleaner employees and their neighbours, causing headaches; nausea; neurological, liver and kidney problems; as well as reduced fertility. While workers and those living around dry-cleaning shops are most at risk, customers aren’t in the clear, as dry-cleaned clothes can give off perc gas after they’re home. Perc can escape into the air, water and ground as well. California recently became the first state in the U.S. to ban the carcinogen, requiring it to be phased out by 2020. Enter the next generation of dry cleaning: carbon dioxide and wet cleaning.

While CO2 has become synonymous with global warming rather than green living, the carbon dioxide used to get that sauce stain out of your favourite party dress is recycled, the captured by-product of various industrial and agricultural processes. The gas is pressurized into liquid, which is used to clean clothes. Unfortunately, converting a perc shop to CO2 isn’t cheap - new machines can cost twice as much as the conventional kind.

But that hasn’t stopped companies from starting CO2 dry-cleaning chains, including Hangers (in the U.S.) and Fred Butler (in Europe). Both brands - owned by German company Linde - may expand in the coming years if legislation further restricts perc use. Of course, liquid CO2 isn’t completely green. While it’s infinitely better than perc, waste from CO2 cleaning machines is still toxic. So what’s a stalwart eco-customer to do with fancy duds? Get them wet.

Peter Sinsheimer, an expert in pollution prevention in the garment-care industry and director of the Pollution Prevention Center (PPC) with the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College in Los Angeles, is a fan. “Wet cleaning is designed to simulate hand-washing,” he explains. The machines are “modified industrial laundry machines” outfitted with sensors that ensure delicate fabrics aren’t damaged. Clothes are finished on tensioning equipment, which gives them that fresh-from-the-cleaner look. Operating costs for a professional wet-clean system are lower than for traditional dry cleaning, and the process uses less energy.

But how do the clothes look? According to a 2003 story in Consumer Reports magazine (the most recent and comprehensive study we could find), the CO2 treatment left clothes in the best shape of all, even better than perc. Sinsheimer admits wet cleaning isn’t the best for all apparel (leather, for example, is a bad match), although most clothes fare just fine.

His vision of a green dry cleaner incorporates both water and carbon dioxide options. “The two technologies are very complementary,” he says. So with any luck, more of us will soon be able to spiff up our suits without hurting everyone’s health.

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