Dry Cleaners – To reduce toxic air emissions, dry cleaners are encouraged to research and implement material subsitution.
Material substitution spot cleaners.
Utilize water-based or less hazardous pre-spotters to perc or TCE free spotting agent. The Institute for Research and Technical Assistance performed field tests on spotting agents and found two safer alternatives: Cold Plus and Nature's Choice. These alternatives generally sell for $10-$20 less per gallon than traditional spotting agents.
Material subsitution for solvent.
Change from using Perc to a less hazardous solvent, such as:
- Hydrocarbon (DF2000, EcoSolve)
- D5 decamethycyclopentasiloxane (Green Earth)
- Glycol eithers (Rynex, Solvair)
- Liquid carbon dioxide (Micell)
Utilize new technologies:
- Wet Cleaning is desirable because it uses only water, detergents, sizing and softeners, and does not produce hazardous waste (although some stain removal chemicals may be hazardous.) The International Fabricare Institute (IFI) stated that most garment care establishments using their existing equipment and procedures can wet clean from 30-40 percent of all customers’ garments with minimal difficulty. IFI also stated that 60-80 percent of all customers’ garments can be wet cleaned using specialized equipment and detergents, and trained labor. However, wet cleaning may not be a complete replacement technology.
- Ultrasonic Cleaning is being researched and developed as a possible alternative to traditional PERC dry cleaning. Ultrasonic cleaning works by using the pressure of sound waves directed at a garment through a soap and water solution. The pressure removes the stains from the garments. Ultrasonic cleaning is also desirable because it produces no hazardous wastes or air emissions.
- Carbon Dioxide Cleaning – both supercritical and liquid carbon dioxide are being explored as methods for garment cleaning. Carbon dioxide technologies are non toxic, easily recycled, inexpensive, non-flammable, non-corrosive and readily available. Liquid carbon dioxide is more favorable as it is safer than supercritical carbon dioxide.
- Icy water is similar to wet cleaning, except garments are washed in cold water and dried with cold air
.
Green Jet – spray water and detergent rather than immersion.
Local Efforts: A few dry cleaner shops in Spokane Co. have chosen to use these less harmful solvent alternatives to Perc:
Hydrocarbon Solvent (DF2000)
Scollards - Replaced one of their two perc machines with a DF2000 dry cleaning machine.
Beacon Cleaners - Installed a new Fibrimatic dry-to-dry closed loop machines and is no longer regulated by Spokane Clean Air.
Technical Assistance Materials:
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