National Clothesline

A National Public Radio report that cast doubts on the safety of GreenEarth drycleaning solvent (D5) drew quick responses last month from both GreenEarth Cleaning and the Silicones Environmental Health and Safety Council.

NPR reporter Allison Aubrey interviewed two GreenEarth representatives, several environmental officials, a wetcleaning advocate and a representative of the Coalition for Clean Air in the Jan. 10 report which, on NPR’s web site (www.npr.org), was headlined “Cancer Risk Seen in GreenEarth Drycleaning.”

Aubrey cited a study by Dow Corning, maker of the silicone-based solvent, to say there is a possibility that the D5 solvent “causes cancer in rats and may also be toxic to the liver.” Aubrey reported that after that preliminary study came out, California officials decided to exclude GreenEarth from eligibility for a program that gives grants to cleaners who install non-perc drycleaning systems.

Julia Quint of the Hazard Evaluation Section of the California Department of Health told Aubrey she is concerned about the low exposure limit given for the solvent and the potential liver toxicity. The exposure limit, she said, is 10 times lower than other solvents which makes her suspect it isn’t completely safe. The low exposure level, she said, “is not all compatible with other solvents and what you would consider non-toxic.” She said EPA should step in and set regulatory limits.

A US EPA official interviewed for the story said, however, that there is not enough evidence of a health hazard at this time for the agency to regulate GreenEarth. EPA’s Charlie Auer told Aubrey it was important to note that earlier studies on D5 showed no effect on reproduction.

“Our judgment is that the best course of action is to wait until we have a completed carcinogenicity study, then do an evaluation to see where we are,” Auer said.

Aubrey also interviewed Jim Barry of GreenEarth Cleaning who said the D5 product as used in drycleaning is safe for its intended use.

“The bottom line is this product as used in the drycleaning industry is safe for its intended use,” Barry said. The rat study, he added, “is non-relevant to humans.”

GreenEarth also posted a response to the story on its web site which said, in part, “The report focused on one scientific study taken out of context, out of more than 30 studies supporting the safety of D5. What listeners didn’t hear is that D5 is a product that has been safely used in the U.S. for decades in a wide variety of applications. Hundreds of personal care products, such as deodorants and shampoos, use D5 as a base. Millions of people have been using these products on a daily basis for a generation.”

In the study that NPR cited, rats were exposed to D5 for two years at concentrations 50 times higher than the expected maximum exposure levels and 16 times higher than the maximum allowable exposure, GreenEarth said. Eight percent of the rats developed tumors after receiving those exposures.

Follow-up studies have determined that the biological process involved in creation of the tumors is “rat specific,” GreenEarth said, and there is no threat to human health.

Not interviewed on air but providing background for the story was The Silicones Environmental Health and Safety Council, a not-for-profit trade association of North American silicone chemical producers and importers.

In a statement given to NPR in November, SEHSC said that “Based on all of the available science, our industry has determined that D5 is safe for its intended uses, including drycleaning. More than 30 studies support the safety of D5. These studies are undertaken because we are committed as an industry that our products are safe in the workplace and for consumers.”

In a follow-up response after NPR aired its report on Jan. 10, SEHSC said it had a particular concern with the comments by Quint of the California Department of Health Services regarding liver toxicity and industrial hygiene guidelines.

The liver effect observed in the rats, SEHSC said, “is a well documented adaptive and reversible effect that has been studied extensively and does not present a hazard to humans.”

The industrial hygiene guidelines that Quint spoke of “are established to manage the exposure of chemicals in order to protect employees,” SEHSC said. “They may be based in health hazards profile of the chemical on the physical/chemical properties of the material, or on the safety aspects such as flammability or explosion potential. Chemicals have different properties and the relative toxicity of different chemicals cannot be compared with each other based on their industrial hygiene guidelines,” the SEHSC statement said.

GreenEarth Cleaning called the NPR report “disappointing, particularly for a network that usually strives to avoid the kind of sensationalism and superficiality that too often plagues commercial news operations.”

“Why did one study, but not the follow-up studies that proved the safety of human use of D5, get so much attention?” GreenEarth asked.

In answering its own questions, the company suggested that “one possible explanation is the highly competitive nature of the drycleaning industry right now” where several cleaning technologies are vying for market share in the search for alternatives to perc.

GreenEarth said it had hoped that the competition would be fair and “based on the merits of the various technologies.”

“It now appears that at least one of our competitors has decided to compete by presenting incomplete and misleading data to the media,” GreenEarth said in its statement.

“Nevertheless, we remain committed to fair and honest discussion of the pros and cons of all the alternative technologies. We believe that’s what the public deserves, and we remain committed to achieving success through that kind of competition.”

One factual error in the NPR report concerned the phase-out of perc in California. Aubrey reported that all cleaners in the state are under a deadline to switch to a non-perc alternative. However, perc faces a phase-out only the in the four-county South Coast Air Quality Management District, and that phase-out is over a 15-year period. Perc is not being phased out anywhere else in California or, for that matter, in the United States.

One of the perc alternatives — wetcleaning — received prominent display in a report that NPR aired along with its GreenEarth story. In that report, Peter Sinsheimer, an advocate of wetcleaning, was interviewed.

Sinsheimer, of Occidental College in Los Angeles, told NPR that advances in machinery and chemistry make it possible to clean “dryclean-only” garments in water, a system he said is superior to any of the chemical solvents both from an environmental and an economic standpoint. He also told NPR that results with wetcleaning, using special equipment and chemicals, are “as good as or better than” traditional drycleaning.

Sinsheimer said wetcleaning has not been more widely adopted because it is a “new thing” for cleaners to learn and there is no “professional wet-clean” care label under the Federal Trade Commission’s care labeling rule.

Sinsheimer is the author of a report released in December by the Pollution Prevention Education and Research Center (PPERC) at Occidental College that says drycleaners should take advantage of financial incentives to trade traditional chemical solvents for wetcleaning technology.

The report also calls for the expansion of a demonstration program in which eight cleaners in the Los Angeles area have converted to wetcleaning with grants from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, The California Wellness Foundation, The Gas Company, and Southern California Edison. There are 22 equipment grants available, each allotting $12,500.

“By increasing the number of dedicated professional wetcleaners in the region, the grant project seeks to create a positive model for the garment care industry as well as establish the infrastructure necessary to begin a larger self-sustaining transition toward environmentally preferable cleaning methods,” said Sinsheimer.

The report calls for the development of a professional wetcleaning association, a certification program, and the development of similar demonstration programs in other regions. The paper also encourages the Federal Trade Commission to require clothing manufacturers to affix “Professional Wet Clean” care labels on their garments.

FTC considered adding a “wetclean” care instruction to its rule several years ago but concluded that the definition of wetcleaning needs to be refined before garment makers could use a label calling for wetcleaning. (See this September 2000 National Clothesline article.)

The PPERC report, “Fashioning a Greener Shade of Clean: Commercialization of Professional Wet Cleaning in the Garment Care Industry,” is on the web at www.uepi.oxy.edu/pperc.