All magic natural, chemical-free home dry cleaning methods
Eighty percent of dry cleaners in the United States use perchlorethylene, better known as perc, as a solvent to wash clothes that are "dry clean only." Despite its effectiveness, the use of this chemical has been linked to a variety of health side effects and has recently come under intense public scrutiny. With strict regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency, professional dry cleaners look to the use of a safer chemical, liquid carbon dioxide, to provide a green laundry alternative. Home dry cleaning kits, like Dry Cleaner's Secret, provide the option of affordable and environmentally safe dry cleaning, reducing waste production and energy burning processes used by professionals.
The first step to green dry cleaning is to replace harmful chemicals with natural cleaning products. Perchlorethylene (perc) is a synthetic chemical that is produced from a reaction between ethylene and chlorine. Like many synthetic chemicals, it poses a threat to our health. Perc is a central nervous system depressant. Exposure can occur in the workplace or the environment when released into the air, water, land, or groundwater. It can also occur when people use perc-containing products, spend time in dry cleaning facilities that use perc, live on or next to these dry cleaners, or bring dry-cleaned clothing into their home before they are properly ventilated. Short-term contact can cause dizziness, headaches, nausea, and irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, while long-term exposure poses greater threats, such as liver and kidney damage and cancer.
Liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) appears to be the most practical green dry cleaning solvent to replace perchlorethylene. It's cheap, abundant, naturally-sourced, and can even be recycled from industrial wastes from the manufacture of chemicals like ammonia. More importantly, exposure to carbon dioxide has no health side effects. The only downsides to CO2 dry cleaning are that it doesn't clean as well as perc and the machinery required to use it is very expensive, so a higher price is passed on to the consumer.
One virtue of environmentalism is moderation. That said, green dry cleaning is best accomplished if you don't dry clean at all or limit the use of professional dry cleaning by using home dry cleaning kits for garments with smaller stains and stains or that they need to be refreshed. Professional dry cleaning is a large, energy-intensive process that produces a large amount of waste in the form of waste dust, sludge and sewage. If the dry cleaner still uses perc (still allowed in most states), these substances are dangerous. Dry cleaning at home involves nothing more than a Dry Cleaner's Secret cleaning cloth and your dryer. There are no harmful chemicals involved or residues.
While perc is still the most effective dry cleaning solvent, using natural cleaning products and dry cleaning at home can only be beneficial to our health and our environment.
~ Ben Anton
