Bay Area perc cleaners may face faster perc phase-out
Some drycleaners in the San Francisco area may have to replace their perc
drycleaning equipment earlier than expected under an accelerated phase-out plan
being considered by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.
The proposal, which was the subject of a June 10 workshop with BAAQMD officials
and industry representatives, could set the final perc phase-out as early as
Jan. 1, 2016.
Currently, cleaners in the Bay Area are under the 2023 final phase-out date adopted by the California Air Resources
Board in 2007.
Under that phase-out schedule, any perc machines manufactured before July 1,
1995 would have to be replaced with non-perc equipment by July 1, 2010. The
July 1 deadline also applies to machines with an unknown date of manufacture
and all perc machine operating in co-residential facilities.
BAAQMD estimates that about two-thirds of the 500 cleaning plants operating in
its nine-county jurisdiction have perc cleaning operations that will have to
cease in a year under the CARB schedule. Those plants will need to switch all
cleaning to non-perc alternatives or operate as drop stores.
One possibility being considered by BAAQMD could make even more machines
ineligible to operate after July 1 of next year. Currently, any machine older
than 15 years would have to be replaced. BAAQMD is considering reducing that to
as few as eight years, although 10 and 12 years were also presented as options.
Disallowing machines older than eight years would have the effect of eliminating
97 percent of perc equipment in the district by next July. According to a
BAAQMD chart, 475 facilities now using perc would have to find an alternative
within the next year.
Even under the 12-year option, in which any perc machine manufactured after 1998
would have to be taken out of service by next July, 451 perc facilities would
be affected.
No matter how the initial phase-out schedule is handled — even if there no changes are made — there would be only 25 cleaning plants using perc after 2015, according to
BAAQMD’s estimates. Those 25 operations would be phased out of perc over the following
eight years under the current state plan.
The local district is considering a phase-put schedule that would remove perc
from those 25 operations even sooner. One option calls for 2016 as the cut-off
year for a final phase-out instead of the current 2023. Other possible final
phase-out dates offered for consideration at the workshop were 2018 and 2020.
No decision on the phase-out was made at the workshop. BAAQMD board members
decided to survey cleaners to obtain information before making a decision about
accelerating the machine replacement date.
Spotting agent phase-out
Cleaners within the jurisdiction of BAAQMD have one year to use up existing
stocks of spotting solutions that contain halogenated compounds.
BAAQMD has prohibited the sales of such solutions as of July 1 but granted an
additional year for cleaners to use existing inventories.
Halogenated solvent spotting formulations — those containing perc or trichloroethylene, for example — can be identified from the MSDS. The Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) number for
perc is 127-18-4; for trichloroethylene it is 79-01-6.
In adopting the ban last March, BAAQMD said newer, effective spotting
formulations without these ingredients are available.
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