Stay green when you dry clean

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

On Nov. 1, the South Coast Air Quality Management District will

consider a ban on a widely used dry cleaning fluid called Perc. If

the ban passes, our area will be the first in the nation to prohibit

use of this toxic chemical for dry cleaning.

Perc is the cute, harmless-sounding nickname for

perchloroethylene, a highly volatile organic solvent. How could the

nasty old air quality district want to ban such a cute-sounding

chemical? Sure, the air stinks inside dry cleaning establishments,

and workers in the industry get headaches, dizziness, sore throats

and coughs, but is that reason enough to ban use of Perc?

No, the reason is that dry cleaning workers also have higher rates

than the general public of cancers of the lung, cervix, esophagus,

intestine, pancreas and bladder. Perc has also been blamed for liver

and kidney toxicity. Officials from the air quality district say that

dry cleaning establishments pose a greater risk of cancer to workers

and nearby residents than oil refineries and power plants. In fact,

the risk of cancer is two to 14 times higher in people living near

dry cleaning businesses than in people who live near an oil refinery

or power plant.

In 2000, the Air Quality Management District identified Perc as

one of six key toxic air contaminants. But the California Cleaners

Assn., an organization of cleaning establishment owners, says that

Perc isn’t that bad. The association claims that the health risk

studies are flawed.

We wanted to sift through the hype and fear-mongering from one

side and the self-interested denial from the other side. We wanted

the truth. It wasn’t easy to find.

The Environmental Protection Agency Web site, one of our

first-line sources of environmental information, was filled with

arcane facts and hard-to-understand tables. We quickly gave up on

that. We resorted to searching the National Library of Medicine

online to read the original medical studies for ourselves. This is

what we learned:

It is clear that Perc causes cancer in animals. But of course,

researchers can’t test chemicals on humans. They have to look at

people who are exposed during the course of work and see what happens

after years of exposure.

What epidemiologists found is that dry cleaning workers have much

higher rates of cancer of the esophagus and bladder than other

people. Exposed workers also have an elevated risk for cancer of the

tongue, intestine and lung, as well as for pneumonia and diseases of

the stomach. The longer people work in the dry cleaning industry, the

more likely they are to develop cancer. However, workers did not have

significantly higher rates of liver or kidney cancer, or leukemia.

A total ban of Perc would eliminate the 850 tons of it that are

spewed into the atmosphere each year by the 2,200 dry cleaning

establishments in the South Coast Air Quality District. Perc also

contaminates public drinking water wells in the state. At present,

contamination is found in one out of 10 wells, and will cost the

state $3 billion to clean up.

The proposed measure would require dry cleaners to phase out Perc

gradually and switch to one of several non-toxic alternatives over

the next 17 years. You would think that 17 years is plenty of time

for cleaners to comply, but the California Cleaners Assn. is opposing

the ban, calling it “overzealous.” They claim that the cost of

switching to a new system would put small dry cleaners out of

business.

There is another consideration. The type of dry cleaning machine

that is used affects the amount of Perc that enters the air. There

are two types of machine. One is a dry-to-dry machine that washes and

dries the clothes in one machine. It poses less hazard to workers

from Perc exposure than the other type of machine, which is called a

transfer machine. In the latter system, clothes are transferred by

hand from the washer, where Perc is used, to the dryer. It is during

this transfer process that workers are most exposed to Perc.

The EPA requires that all new machines be dry-to-dry. This would

reduce emissions and protect workers without an outright ban on Perc.

The refrigerated condensers and carbon filters now available for dry

cleaning machines reduce emissions even more, up to 80%. Many

cleaners who have invested in these newer systems protest that it

isn’t fair that they will be required to switch to yet another

process. They have a point, but the older transfer machines still

need to be eliminated, and the sooner, the better.

The so-called green cleaning processes include “wet cleaning,” a

process offered by Sparkle Cleaners, a Huntington Beach dry cleaner

on Adams Avenue.

Other forms of environmentally friendly dry cleaning are

hydrocarbon- and silicone-based solvent cleaning and carbon dioxide

cleaning.

Ask whether your dry cleaner uses dry-to-dry or transfer machines

and whether they use refrigerated condensers and carbon filters to

reduce Perc emissions. Boycott cleaners who use the older transfer

machines. You could also buy clothes that don’t need dry cleaning.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.