Environmentally-friendly Dry Cleaning for a Glamorously Green Girl. OK, so you have bought a sustainable stylish frock, popped it into your glam Envirosak - because you would never take a plastic or paper bag (paper bags actually do more damage to the environment than plastic so don't be fooled), you had a great night out wearing it (you looked fab - skin glowing from your organic skincare regime) and took your eco taxi home only to find some terrible stain down the side of your dress (maybe a bit too much organic wine). Bummer. Now, ideally it would be great if you could pop the dress in a full load of washing (and wash on cold with eco friendly soap), however, this frock requires dry cleaning.
Green Goss: 95% of dry cleaners in Australia (85% in the US) use Perc, a really nasty petroleum-based chemical. Basically this stuff has nothing going for it...it is both an environmental and health hazard. Continued exposure can cause damage to the nervous system, it is a possible carcinogenic, not very bio-degradable and an air pollutant....hard to dream up a more damaging chemical if you tried.
Little Green Make-over: There is great news as more and more cleaners are going green. There are basically three types of green cleaning: Water based, CO2 and GreenEarth (a liquid silicone - basically sand - which breaks down easily into water, carbon and sand). Different studies I have looked at rate them in different order. I figure most of us will have only one nearby if we are lucky so don't worry too much about which of the three methods are used. I go to Parc Sydney which uses the GreenEarth method. Dean, the owner, is the most lovely man and knows his stains. I have brought in vintage children's clothes with yellow age marks, a silk dress with some unknown goo from some little hands and oil stains, yellow table cloths....all amazingly clean. He even uses biodegradable garment covers (which I bring back to him with the hangers and he reuses them). On top of being the top stain expert, the prices are no more than a traditional dry cleaner.
Click here for a listing of GreenEarth Dry Cleaners in Australia. In the US go to GreenEarth Store Finder to search by City or State. Otherwise, check you local directory for eco or green dry cleaners. If there is not one close by try to reduce the amount you dry clean (I have started washing lots of my silks again) and definitely let any dry cleaning air out in an open space before putting it in your closet.
Pattyxxx
5 comments:
Thanks so much Patty...I had mostly given up on dry cleaning because of the toxic chemicals. I was wondering how Parc was, and now with your feedback I will definitely give them a try!
I'll have to hunt out a good dry cleaner in this neck of the woods. I'm also interested in the paper bag vs plastic bag issue - lots of shops are switching to paper for green reasons. Are they misguided?
Hi Suzie,
I was surprised by the fact that paper bags are worse than plastic as well. We have come to believe that anything plastic is evil, particularly these bags tat are hard to recycle. Based on a lifecycle analysis, paper bags actually take more energy to produce and have more emissions. Think of all the energy to cut trees, refine them, transport them ,etc. Even when recycling is taken into account, plastic is better. However, canvas bags are way better than either for the environment...Think I will need to do a post on this!
Jessica - Let me know how you go with Parc...
Pattyxxx
Preferring plastic over paper bag for dry cleaning. Why is that? because paper is more dangerous than plastic.
Plastic Card printing
Green Clean, we need to clean first then we need to do greenary,
especially, it's true in the boating industry. i run a sailboats for sale site and use this service.
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