News Articles

12 / 2006

Drycleaning Benefits the Environment

“While competing interests often debate the relative environmental benefits of various drycleaning and wetcleaning systems, the same comparison is rarely made with the biggest competitor to professional cleaning, namely the home washer and dryer. Now to the debate table comes the International Committee of Textile Care (CINET), a European association that represents the drycleaning industry. A CINET study that compares professional wetcleaning and drycleaning to domestic washing was presented during a conference at Expo Detergo in Milan, Italy, last month.

The CINET study calculated the amount of resources consumed in drycleaning a kilogram of clothes and compared that to cleaning the same weight in a home washer and dryer. If you guessed that the professionally cleaned clothes used fewer resources – electricity, water, and detergent – you guessed right. You would also not be surprised to know that the drycleaning process produced a small fraction of the amount of wastewater per kilogram. CO2 emissions were also less in the drycleaning process. The only area in which drycleaning out-consumed home laundering was in the use of solvent – none is used in the home process, of course. [GreenEarth is a fully biodegradable solvent.]

In what might be considered more of an apples-to-apples comparison, CINET also calculated the resources used in professional wetcleaning and home washing. Here again the professional process came out on top, using half as much water, about one-fifth as much detergent and a bit less electricity.

CINET concluded, ‘expansion of the apparel volume cleaned by a professional drycleaning instead of domestic washing and drycleaning will have an advantageous effect on the total consumption of scarce national resources.’ Thus, professional cleaning is not only better for clothes, it’s better for the environment. Environmentalists, government regulators and garment makers should be encouraging professional cleaning if for no other reason than to benefit the environment.” Source: The National Clothesline, December, 2006