Once, people pounded clothes with rocks to get them cleaned. Now we’ve come full circle, with dry cleaning  headed back to those Earthy roots.

Many people are familiar with the use of hazardous chemicals in modern dry-cleaning solution. The primary cleaning solvent used in most dry-cleaners is perchloroethylene or “perc”. The Environmental Protection Agency classified this petroleum chemical as a Toxic Air Contaminant and a probable human carcinogen and many environmentalists believe that the residue on your clothes can’t be a healthything.

Now there is a better alternative and believe it or not, it is made essentially from liquefied sand.

GreenEarth Cleaning developed this non-toxic and non-hazardous liquid silicone dry cleaning solvent, which is safe for you and the environment. It is made of three natural elements: sand, water, and carbon dioxide. Liquid silicone is used in many products you use everyday such as lotion, shampoo, and conditioner.

This technology also is better for your clothes, according to GreenEarth. It will not cause fabrics to fade or shrink, allowing your garments to last longer. “Perc and other hydrocarbons are aggressive as they interact with the fabrics, dyes, and trims of today’s fashions. The GreenEarth silicone system is gentle due to the low surface tension of the silicone fluid and its characteristics of remaining inert rather than interacting with the fibers and trims,” said Tim Maxwell, President of GreenEarth Cleaning.

There are approximately 1,500 GreenEarth Cleaning machines being used by dry cleaners today, from single store businesses to large dry cleaning chains. Nextcleaners is a chain of dry cleaners in New York and New Jersey that has been using the new liquid silicone solvent.

“We believe GreenEarth solvent is presently the most practical eco-friendly solution without compromising the dry cleaning service quality in the marketplace. It’s is also the most widely used eco-friendly solution and the only one presently approved by the State of California,” said Kam Saifi, President and CEO of Nextcleaners. In addition to the use of GreenEarth Cleaning, they are making additional strides to benefit the environment, such as the use of bicycle transportation for delivery and pick up.

Thanks to efforts made by GreenEarth and its affiliates, the dry cleaning industry is beginning to change its ways.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Now that bringing your own shopping bag to buy groceries is no longer seen as aberrant behavior, and is inching in some places toward the norm, foes of throwaway plastic bags can open new fronts in their war: the dry-cleaner bag, for one, which reportedly accounts for three hundred million pounds of landfill-clogging waste each year.

Last month, dry cleaning and laundry professionals at an Atlantic City convention were introduced to a new product designed to do away with those single-use bags: The Green Garmento, a more durable polypropylene bag that shifts forms as needed for continual reuse. At home, it’s a duffel bag for collecting dirty clothes and taking them to the cleaner; at the cleaner, it can be reconfigured as a zippered garment bag, keeping items fresh until customers pick them up.

Keeping up with those morphing bags may sound like a bit of a headache for folks in the laundry business, but company co-owner Jennie Nigrosh (a former show-biz professional who launched Green Garmento a few months ago with her husband) says the response so far has been good. “We’ve been to two dry cleaning conventions,” she reports, “and they get it. We thought we’d come up against a lot of resistance.”

Nigrosh notes that switching to reusable bags would save cleaners the expense of buying disposable ones, and could even present a way to make a profit — dry cleaners could sell the bags to customers (for a suggested price of $9.99, around twice the wholesale cost) just as grocers now sell reusable shopping bags. Alternatively, they could take a deposit for bags that would remain their property; those of us who rarely use dry cleaners (freelance journalists, say, who go to work in shorts and a ten year-old t-shirt) may not realize this, but many cleaners already take deposits for VIP laundry bags intended to promote customer loyalty.

Nigrosh says she’s already in talks with a store owner who wants to put his own logo on the bag (alongside the Green Garmento brand, of course) for just that purpose.

In these early days, the Green Garmento is only being used by cleaners in a few cities. Nigrosh points to such clients as Brentwood Royal Cleaners in Brentwood, CA, Urban Life Cleaners in Los Angeles (2 locations), and Commuter Cleaners in Connecticut and New York (7 locations). She hopes to spread the word via consumers with a program offering free bags to folks in exchange for referrals.

If and when the product takes off, Green Garmento has planned to clean up after itself. At the end of a bag’s useful life, the company promises to recycle them and even make pick-ups at clients’ stores, giving participating recyclers a discount toward new bags.

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media