National Clothesline

New Jersey state officials are taking a carrot-and-stick approach to moving drycleaners away from perchloroethylene with the carrot in the form of grants to purchase new equipment with added incentive to buy wetcleaning equipment and a series of workshops on wetcleaning.

The stick will come eventually in the form of new regulations on perc drycleaning operations, but it’s the carrot that is in play now and New Jersey drycleaners have been taking the state up on its offer to replace perc machines with alternative solvent equipment or wetcleaning machines.

Since the first of the year, when the program began, 25 grants have been approved and three others are pending, according to Ed Choromanski, administrator of air enforcement for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Three other grants were pending in mid-June, he said.

During the first six months, grants were limited to cleaners in co-located residential situations and those within 50 feet of a licensed day-care facility. Choromanski said there are about 100 such cleaning plants in the state.

Those plants are likely to be the first affected by new rules currently in development. Those rules would prohibit perc use in co-residential plants and those near day-care centers by 2014. The rules would also require a minimum of fourth-generation perc equipment in other locations and put in place a number of pollution prevention requirements.

As of July 1, the program was opened up to the rest of the state’s perc drycleaners, believed to number about 1,700 total. Choromanski said about 125 grants were ready and will be awaiting review as of additional July 1.

Cleaners who agree to replace their perc machine can get a reimbursement toward purchase of a new cleaning machine. The grant is based on the age, size and type of machine.

Choromanski said so far the grants have been in the range of $25,000 to $45,000.

Those who convert to a wetcleaning-only operation are eligible for an additional $15,000 grant.

To further encourage wetcleaning, the DEP has been working with the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers (NJSBDC) under a grant supplied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to provide education on wetcleaning through a series of workshops around the state.

The workshops began last fall and were held most recently last month with three sessions in Trenton, NJ. About 15 cleaners attended a Sunday, June 13 afternoon session where they saw a live demonstration of wetcleaning and tensioning equipment finishing by tensioning equipment.

Rudie Smit of Miele discussed the wetcleaning process and Bill Alvarez from Hi-Steam demonstrated how to finish wetcleaned garments, such as suit jackets, pants, sweaters, silk blouses and polo shirts.

The finished garments were passed around for inspection, then came a round of questions, comments and discussions that lasted beyond the scheduled 5 p.m. conclusion. A similar session was held the following morning and an evening session took place on June 17.

The program’s web site, njsbdc.com/njwetcleaning, will announce future workshops. The site also has information on wetcleaning, a list of wetcleaners in New Jersey and a link to the DEP’s perc machine replacement grant program.

The replacement grant program is backed by a $5 million fund, money received by the DEP in a settlement of a lawsuit against coal-fired Midwestern power companies that created air pollution that blows toward New Jersey. That would be enough to fund 200 grants at an average of $25,000 each.

NJDEP has advised that cleaners should not submit a grant application until they are actually ready to replace their equipment. Once the application is approved, a cleaner will have 90 days to install new equipment. NJDEP advises not applying sooner than within six months of the planned replacement.

Only perc equipment is eligible for reimbursement and the old machines must be replaced by a new unit to qualify with the exception of machines in co-residential locations. Those can qualify for a reimbursement if they are removed without being replaced by other cleaning equipment, such as converting the location to a drop store.

Multiple perc machines in a location can qualify, too, even if they are only replaced by a single machine. The total of the reimbursement, however, can not exceed the cost of the new machine.