Clean

Last week I had a suit cleaned at OK cleaners, one of the growing number of garment care businesses that use environmentally friendly commercial wet cleaning technologies rather than dry cleaning machines, which depend on a toxic solvent.

The shop is located on a stretch of garey ave with a funny mix of mid-century profesisonal buildings - now faded from their glory days. I live not too far away. If I was a more formal type & needed to professionally clean clothes more frequently, I'd have stopped by sooner.

The cleaner doesn't highlight that's it's using wetcleaning technologies, maybe a smart move for a while since most customers are used to dry cleaning. But something is different. The shop doesn't reek of chemicals. The air is clean, my suit came back clean, a combination you can't beat.

The state of California is currently deciding whether how to regulate toxic and smog forming cleaning technologies. The staff of the agency in charge wants to keep the poisonous technologies on the market. Leaving aside the work our pollution prevention center has done on this issue, when I think as a consumer and resident it just doesn't make to keep a polluting technology out there when clean alternatives exist.

So go check out a wet cleaning shop near you. See, and smell, for yourself.

And take a minute to let the air resources board know they should do their job and phase out perc drycleaning.

 

Comments

[Andrea Azuma]

What a handy map tool! I found a place to get my clothes professionally wet-cleaned in South Pasadena. There’s a lot of greenwashing going on in Pasadena and elsewhere as cleaners advertise for Green Earth, a dry cleaning technology that is touted as a nontoxic and environmentally friendly technology. I even get coupons for cleaners using Green Earth on the back of my Wild Oats receipts. But, as an NPR report highlighted last January, this technology from Dow Corning isn’t all it’s advertised to be. Emerging evidence shows that high exposure to the silicone-based solvent used in Green Earth causes cancer in rats. Why risk it when there are wet cleaning shops in your neighborhood?