You may have noticed at one time or another a business sign reading "The Greener Cleaner." You probably felt in your heart of hearts, "All right, at last there’s an alternative to dry cleaning." Somehow you know that anything with that unforgettable dry-cleaning chemical smell cannot be good for the environment, let alone good for the people who work around it day after day. And now, finally, you think, there’s an option. "Surely," you tell yourself, "it’s only a matter of time before The Greener Cleaner catches on and we’re all getting our clothes clean in a healthier, more responsible way." And yet you wait and you notice that the cleaners going in down the block, as well as the one on every other block in the neighborhood is not The Greener Cleaner but the same old, chemical-emitting place you’ve known since childhood.
Well, if you’ve gotten a little discouraged while waiting for the widespread availability of The Greener Cleaner, I’ve got good news. Pick-up and delivery service is now available from the south loop to Evanston and if you’re lucky enough to live in Andersonville or near two suburban Dominick’s locations, you’ve got a neighborhood place where you can drop off your stuff and pick up clothing cleaned in this better way.
What is this better way? How does The Greener Cleaner dry-clean in a healthier, environmentally friendly way? Actually, The Greener Cleaner doesn’t do dry cleaning at all. It washes your clothes, even so-called‘dry-clean only’ clothes, in water. You’re thinking: that would be fine, if I was planning to donate a shrunken, faded wardrobe to a children’s theater. But, in the wet-cleaning process used by The Greener Cleaner, dye stability and dimensional stability are ensured. Agents in the soap keep the colors from bleeding and the garment from shrinking. Soaps are blended with water before the fabric even touches it and these special soaps contain conditioners that protect the‘dry-clean only’ fibers so they can be immersed.
Once these sensitive fabrics are protected in this way, "It’s terrific to use water" to clean them, according to Noam Frankel, owner of The Greener Cleaner. Although most dry cleaners do "maybe 35 percent" wet-cleaning with certain fabrics, The Greener Cleaner is Chicagoland’s second, but only surviving, exclusively wet cleaning business, with the capability to wet-clean maybe 99 percent of all possible fabrics. And, according to Frankel, apart from the worker-health and environmental benefits, wet-cleaning has one other advantage. It cleans better. Water’s "always been better. It’s a cleaner far superior to any dry cleaner chemical. There is a noticeable quality difference. The clothes don’t smell. Whites get really white and the colors get really bright. They feel a lot softer and are more comfortable to wear" than chemically dry-cleaned clothes, says Frankel.
In addition to special soaps, sophisticated washing machines are essential to the wet-cleaning process. According to Frankel, both equipment and soaps were developed in Germany and Austria in the early nineties because the environmental laws are so strict in those countries. The machines are microprocessor controlled, with customized programs for various garments and fabrics. The microprocessors allow for control of every aspect of the cleaning cycle. Together with the addition of those advanced soaps and conditioners to protect the clothing, the equipment basically simulates hand-washing while using a machine process. The Greener Cleaner uses machines made by Miehle, "a very high-end appliance manufacturer which has been making the machinery in Germany since 1992 but only started selling it in the U.S. a year and a half ago." Previously, The Greener Cleaner used a machine manufactured by Electrolux.
In part, it is the sophistication of the process that has led to the slowness of its spread as a principal method of cleaning fine garments. If you want to do wet cleaning, you have to learn how to use the machines, what soaps to use with which fabrics, and exactly how to sort both fabrics and garments. Comments Frankel, "One extra minute is a big difference, 50 rpm faster is a big difference." Wet cleaning, he goes on to point out, "cleans better, is not more expensive, but requires more knowledge and expertise." Conventional dry cleaning is easier for workers; a large number of fabrics and garments are treated with the same chemical process.
Training for wet cleaners comes in part from the manufacturer — Miehle provides some of the information about using its equipment well. The International Fabricare Institute also offers courses in wet cleaning. Some of the knowledge, it seems, comes from years of experience. The Greener Cleaner has been at it since 1995. There is also an ongoing wet cleaning project at the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which provides information about, and some training for, wet cleaning.
This learning curve, says Frankel, slows wet cleaning in catching on in a bigger way. He also mentions that dry cleaning is traditionally an immigrant profession, so that English language proficiency (though maybe German would be more to the point) and level of schooling may be additional hurdles to more widespread understanding and use of wet cleaning. Still another stumbling block is the tendency in the dry-cleaning industry to see wet cleaning as an adjunct technology rather than as a new way of doing things. In other words, dry cleaners already using conventional chemical methods may add some of the equipment to do some of their customers’ clothes with wet cleaning. But they don’t purchase all the equipment or do all of the training necessary to clean 99 percent of the clothes they get with wet cleaning, as The Greener Cleaner does.
Obviously, the inertia also stems from the money already invested in the chemical process. Dry cleaning establishments have invested in the machinery that uses the chemicals and are not anxious to scrap that investment and replace their machines with wet cleaning technology. Chemical manufacturers are invested in the production of the chemicals used by dry cleaners and use what influence they have to make dry cleaners stick with those.
In the particular case of The Greener Cleaner, growth has been difficult because of the owner’s own learning curve. Frankel, who got into wet cleaning because of his desire to do something environmentally constructive, came to it from running a trucking business. The Center for Neighborhood Technology got a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1995 to start a pilot program for more responsible clothes cleaning and Frankel came on board to run it. That was how The Greener Cleaner got its start, as a demonstration project, though it has since become an independent business.
Located in Andersonville since it opened in 1995, The Greener Cleaner at one point branched out to a site near North and Clybourn. Frankel learned the hard way that a dry cleaner really is a convenience business, that people want the store right next to work or home, and that they want very convenient parking. While there was parking at the North and Clybourn location, it was a tiny lot shared by a number of businesses including the Crate and Barrel outlet store. The business did not thrive and eventually closed down at that location. On the other hand, the Andersonville neighborhood is, according to Frankel, "an environmentally supportive, tight community," a fertile location for a growing a wet cleaning business, and the store there is still going strong.
Frankel has been interested in expanding into grocery stores for a while, especially into Whole Foods Market, where there is presumably a good supply of customers who would prefer wet cleaning. He approached Whole Foods at one time, but they felt they could not give up the floor space necessary for the conveyer belt where cleaned clothes are hung awaiting pick-up. However, this past November, The Greener Cleaner opened in a Dominick’s store in Willowbrook and this past April at a second Dominick’s in Wheaton. According to Frankel, the two satellite locations have been very well received by customers at these stores, both of which have large natural foods sections. Dominick’s was looking for a dry cleaning business to serve in some of its stores and signed a contract with a broker to find one. Frankel got a tip that this was so and made his presentation about the high quality of the cleaning afforded by his wet cleaning process. According to Frankel, "The president of Dominick’s has been supportive and so has the president’s wife." Frankel is hopeful about expanding into other Dominick’s stores, especially in the city, and he remains open to talking with other possible joint-venturers.
Apart from an instinctive mistrust of the chemical smell, what is the real concern about the chemical most often used in conventional dry cleaning? According to the EPA fact sheet, perchlorethylene, or perc, is a known carcinogen. It can enter ground water. Plants and animals store it. In addition to causing cancer, contact with perc can irritate skin, eyes, and throat. It can affect breathing and cause liver and kidney damage. Most people are probably not at risk for these effects in merely wearing dry-cleaned clothes. The people really at risk are the workers and those who live next to dry-cleaning plants. According to Frankel, whenever you talk to someone whose family ran a dry-cleaning business, there are stories of a family member with leukemia or cancer. As Frankel goes on to ask, "Why use a harmful chemical if you can avoid it?" The substances used in wet cleaning, says Frankel, are "Completely benign soaps and solvents, collagen-based."
Taking a Paul Hawken-ish perspective on this whole issue, you might be tempted to conclude that the real reason wet cleaning doesn’t spread faster is that the actual costs of chemical dry cleaning are not paid by those who offer the service or by those who use it. Who really pays for the harmful effects of perchlorethylene is anyone who pays for health insurance, since those premiums presumably reflect the illnesses associated with chemical dry cleaning. If those premiums were very much higher for chemical dry cleaning employers buying plans for workers (assuming they buy any at all), there would be more of an incentive to switch sooner to wet cleaning, to keep costs down for customers. Another way of promoting a faster change would be to tax chemical dry cleaners for the health costs associated with their way of doing business. While we wait for legislators to catch on to these possibilities, we can be grateful to the EPA, to the Center for Neighborhood Technology, to The Greener Cleaner, and to Dominick’s, for the steps they have taken and are taking to make sure your clean laundry isn’t dirty.
Resources
The Greener Cleaner, 5312 N. Broadway, Chicago, 7:00 am to 7:00 pm, Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 5.30 pm, Saturday
Inside Dominick’s at Danada Square East, in Wheaton, 773-271-8350, 7:00 am to 10:00 pm, seven days
Inside Dominick’s at Rt. 83 and 63rd Street. in Willowbrook, 773-784-8429, 7:00 am to 10:00 pm, seven days
Facts about perchlorethylene
Center for Neighborhood Technology (go to Projects)