Jim Gilligan, president of Snedicor’s Cleaners, made the big switch to liquid silicone (Photo by Kyle Norris)
There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:
Transcript
There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:
Jim Gilligan is president of Snedicor’s Cleaners.
And for years, his business has used a chemical called perchloroethylene to
clean clothes. Actually, let’s just call it ‘perc’ which is what everyone calls
it. But Gilligan says he did not like perc, for lots of reasons. For one thing,
he had to store the chemical in these big tanks.
“It was hard to deal with, it was heavily regulated, there was potential for
spills and other types of disasters.”
Perc is a toxic air contaminant. There’s evidence it can cause cancer, as well
as liver and kidney damage. Contact with perc can cause lots of problems
like nausea, dizziness, skin irritation, loss of consciousness, and even death.
If perc leaks into the soil or ground water it can be a disaster. Partly because
perc is hard to extract from water.
Perc was the industry standard for years. And today about 70% of American
dry cleaners still use it. But there’s a growing movement to stop using it and
embrace greener techniques.
Gilligan had heard about some of these newer, eco-crunchier techniques. But
he’d also heard that they did not work as well as perc.
Then he visited another dry cleaning plant. Its owner had switched from
using perc to using liquid silicone. Which is basically liquefied sand.
“That gave me a confidence, right. That was, because we’d been hearing
from the industry as whole that it didn’t clean as well. And of course it’s
great moving into a green technology but if your customers wind up
dissatisfied and you go out of business, that would sort of defeat the
purpose.”
Gilligan says he was impressed with how well liquid silicone cleaned
garments. So he made the big switch. He got rid of his perc machines. And
he bought a new machine that used liquid silicone. To the tune of $80,000
bucks.
And as he gathered his employees to show them the new machine, he did
something kind of kooky.
“I actually took a little cup and I drank it.”
The liquid silicone. The stuff that cleans the clothes. Dude drank it! Says it
tasted like salty vegetable oil.
“Everyone was shocked to see that, but I just wanted to show them that how
confident I was that this was a safe technology.”
And since that shot of liquid silicone, Gilligan hasn’t had any issues. His
customers tell him they’re happy with the results. And financially he’s done
really well this year.
But not all dry cleaners are ready or willing to take this kind of risk. Dry
cleaning is a tough business to make a profit in. So plenty of cleaners want
to stick with what they know works—which for a lot of them, is using perc.
In fact, there’s a tension in the industry these days. Between the old
schoolers—cleaners who use perc. And the new schoolers—people trying
out newer, greener methods.
Chris Allsbrooks is with the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute.
“And right now our mix is changing because there’s
more people coming into the industry as some of the people with the older
views are leaving the industry.”
And the laws are changing, too. California has said that perc can no longer
be used by that state’s dry cleaners by the year 2023. And New Jersey is
considering following in California’s footsteps.
For Jim Gilligan, the switch was the just right thing to do: as a business
owner and as someone who cares about the environment. He says now, he
breathes easier. And so do his employees. And his customers say a green dry
cleaner works for them.
For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.