IFI rebuts negative
commentary on perc
commentary on perc
For the International Fabricare
Institute, it’s a never-ending battle when it comes to
improving the public perception of drycleaners.
In the past few months, IFI has responded
to two articles that had shed an unfavorable light on
perchloroethylene cleaning — one by E/The Environmental Magazine and one by Town &
Country Magazine.
According to IFI CEO Bill Fisher, both
reports were “a great disservice to the tens of thousands
of environmentally and safety conscious drycleaners in the
United States.”
He further stated, “With
today’s practices and equipment, in which 99.999 percent
of the solvent is recycled, we absolutely feel that all
drycleaning is environmentally safe.”
In the Town and Country article,
“How to Clean Up Your Life,” Deidre Imus —
wife of radio personality Don Imus — linked perc to
various health problems and told readers of the publication to
air their perc-drycleaned clothes outdoors for several hours.
Another point of contention for IFI
stemmed from an inquiry sent in by Earl Ecksrom of Portland,
Oregon, to EarthTalk — a Q&A segment in E/The Environmental Magazine. He wrote: “I’ve heard that the
solvents commonly used in commercial drycleaning are unhealthy
and unsafe for the environment. Is this true?”
In its response, EarthTalk editors said:
“Studies show that perchloroethylene — the
solvent used by the vast majority of drycleaning establishments
— is both hazardous to human health and injurious to the
environment.”
At the conclusion of the section, the
EarthTalk editors added: “While the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the use of perc under the
Toxic Substances Control Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe
Drinking Water Act, states have been reticent to adopt
phase-outs. The drycleaning industry has mounted a strong lobby
in favor of keeping perc legal, but consumer opposition is
building, especially as more non-toxic alternatives are
becoming available.”
Fisher sent a letter of his own in to
defend the drycleaning industry against the way it was
portrayed in the EarthTalk Q&A article. That response was
published in the “Letters to the Editor” section of
Bay Weekly, a Chesapeake (Maryland) newspaper that covers
environmental issues.
Among other things, the letter said,
“the EPA’s own fact sheet cited at the end of the
article states, ‘These effects are not likely to occur at
levels of perc that are normally found in the
environment’.”
Both perc stories and Fisher’s full
responses can be accessed in the industry news section of
www.ifi.org.
On the plus side for some cleaners in the
industry, the EarthTalk segment did feature positive publicity
for other cleaning solvent usage, especially GreenEarth.
“Perhaps the most promising
non-toxic perc alternative is produced by GreenEarth Cleaning,
which has patented its silicone-based drycleaning solvent
called Cyclic Silioxane. This product poses no threat to the
environment or human health and simply degrades to sand, water
and carbon dioxide,” the article said.
Oddly enough, despite that positive
testimony for GreenEarth, IFI also had to defend its usage in
January when National Public Radio filed a report that
contained some “unexpected findings” in a
preliminary study on the solvent.
IFI had taken issue with that report, as
well, prompting Fisher to say, “IFI is not here to
promote one solvent over another, but we will go up against bad
science each and every time.”
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MARCH 2005