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The Dangers of and Alternatives to Dry Cleaning

Sprol, a website that looks at the "visual macroscopic effects of the decisions and behavior of our society," recently reported on the town of Martinsville, Indiana, once known as the "City of Mineral Water." Today, the city's water supply has been contaminated with dry-cleaning solvents.

Green Clean's Laundry chapter details some alternatives to dry cleaning, and describes the effects of dry cleaning chemicals: "Most dry cleaners use a petroleum-based solvent called perchlorethylene, which can adversely affect the central nervous system; can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, and throat; and is a possible human carcinogen. Perc, as it’s frequently called, has become one of the most common contaminants in groundwater."

Many cities now have eco-friendly dry cleaning franchises, which sometimes call their process "wet cleaning." And many "dry clean only" garments can be carefully hand-washed at home.

Posted by GreenClean at 01:46 PM

This Book is Not a Tree: A Note About Green Clean

Green Clean is a DuraBook, a waterproof, stain-resistant, super-durable book made with synthetic paper and a special binding. It will last for years -- carted around the house, sitting out in the sun, soaked in a cleaning bucket.

You might expect that a guide to ecofriendly housecleaning would be made of recycled paper. But recycling can only be done so many times; fibers eventually lose their strength and the paper becomes garbage.

The materials we use do not need to become trash. Instead, they can become nutrients for a new generation of goods. “Waste equals food,” architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart write in their landmark book Cradle to Cradle. They describe the coming transformation of industry from one “that takes, makes, and wastes to one that celebrates natural, economic, and cultural abundance.”

Green Clean represents a step toward this more sustainable way of making things. The polypropylene that Green Clean is printed on, which can be traditionally recycled, will, in a better industrial system, become just such a nutrient, part of a stream of materials that can be reused over and over without losing their integrity.

As Green Clean’s authors note, a tool that lasts for years is an ecofriendly tool. If you are done with Green Clean, though, a landfill is no place for a book. Give it to a friend or a library, or send it to us at Melcher Media. We will make sure it is properly recycled.

Melcher Media
124 West 13th Street
New York NY 10011

Posted by GreenClean at 02:18 PM