With so many members of society jumping on the “green” bandwagon, dry cleaners have taken a hit. More and more people are saying “no” to having their clothes cleaned with chemicals. Interestingly, dry cleaning has been around for centuries. While there are many stories of how the cleaning method came to be, many people put stock in the tale that includes Frenchman Jean Baptiste Jolly’s maid accidentally spilling kerosene from a lamp onto a tablecloth. Jolly noticed how much cleaner the tablecloth appeared where the kerosene had spilled and tried to duplicate the results with other materials.
Early dry cleaners used a cocktail of highly flammable chemicals including turpentine, gasoline, carbon tetrachloride, benzene and camphene to rid dirt from clothes. However, it wasn’t until the early 1930s, that the dry cleaning industry switched to a nonflammable solvent, percholorethylene. But, here’s the kicker to that switch: In the 1970s studies found that percholorethylene was harmful to the health of humans and to the environment.
Despite the health findings, in 2006 another study found that 85 percent of the 36,000 dry cleaning shops in the United States still used the highly toxic chemical. In an effort to become more eco-friendly and preserve the health of dry cleaners, manufacturers came up with three safer alternatives to percholorethylene: Carbon dioxide, silicone, and wet cleaning.
If you are staunchly against having toxic chemical come into contact with your clothing, bedding or other dry clean-only materials, then you might consider washing them yourself or calling around to select dry cleaners in your area. There are some companies that market themselves as “green” dry cleaners and will actually go into detail about the types of eco-friendly cleaners they use. Your final option is to simply stop purchasing items that require dry cleaning.