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@PorkchopSandwiches!_GitEmSteveDave: A few shops around the seattle area have started doing this. Supposedly it's much better than the other traditional chemicals in comparison. But I'm not a scientist nor environmentalist, so I just have to trust the newsanchors on this one.
Ha! I've been wondering the same thing! You see lots of "eco-friendly" or whatever dry cleaners in SF and I've always wondered exactly what the difference is.
@downwithmonstercable: As I've always understood it, the real harm from conventional dry cleaning methods (using PERC, or perchloroethylene) have to do with worker exposure to the chemicals and potential risk to the customer from low level exposure to residue.
CDC / NIOSH report on it (a little dated, but still good)
There's also a risk of fire from some of the solvents they use.
Maybe others know better about the carbon footprint aspect, but it could be a wash - or maybe even worse. But I think that cleaner using wet wash or CO2 without cheating would be better for workers, and I'm happy about that.
Probably that they use less chemicals to clean your clothing. Or at the very least, use more eco-friendly chems.
There's an "organic" dry cleaners in Lakewood, NJ.I don't know what it is that they do to shirts there, and I don't care either (appearently they use some unpronouncable chemical instead of some other unpronouncable chemical). All I know is, they are the best dry cleaners I have ever been to. Shirts feel soft and collars retain their shape without being stiff or sharp edged.
They charge a little more (like, 5%), but totally worth it if you dry clean all your work clothes like me.
What's organic dry cleaning? Well, it's what the emperor uses to get his new clothes clean.
"Organic" dry-cleaning = "Uses chemicals defined as belonging to the group that organic chemistry deals with, such as petrochemicals and hydrocarbons."
Prove I'm wrong. :)
@speedwell, avatar of snark: Ha, I'm NOT wrong; perchloroethylene is listed as an "organic solvent" by the CDC:
I remeber an old Popular Science filmreel where they had a vision of the future where people wearing soiled clothes would stand on a conveyor and get dunked up to their necks into a vat of chemicals only to get conveyored out at the end of the pit with clean clothes and not dripping with liquid.
Ah, today's crazy infomercials for crap that works a lot better in fiction than in reality kind of remind me of those old flicks.
Most people don't even know what dry cleaning really is.
@Binaryslyder: It means they grow the chemicals sustainably on local farms owned by co-ops. Using manure. Right?
They use the steam from a natural hot springs to purify the fibers of your clothes. The sulfur smell is an added bonus.
@PorkchopSandwiches!_GitEmSteveDave: It's Express organic Cleaners, 415 Cedar bridge Ave (just north of the BlueClaws ballpark).
It's marketing. It's whats in right now.
This comment is green, add me as your friend.
@oneandone: That makes sense. I'd imagine less perc in the atmosphere is probably a good thing too, although I don't know its characteristics. I'd imagine it probably somehow ends up in groundwater. Anyway, less harmful chemicals on workers is a good thing. I doubt emissions in the grand scheme of things are really going to change based on some dry cleaners using CO2 anyway.
@Applekid: We were also supposed to have robot maids, flying cars, and food capsules by now too. I want my flying car!
Every robe is inspected personally by Leia Organa.
Dry cleaning uses what scientists would call "organic solvents," which are hydrocarbon based chemicals (as opposed to the most commonly used solvent in life, water). My guess is that some marketing guru somewhere saw the word organic and thought "Huzzah! A buzz word!" I bet it's not any different nor any more economical than standard dry cleaning.
@PorkchopSandwiches!_GitEmSteveDave: But it's not liquid CO2 (NYTimes got it wrong). Technically it's a supercritical fluid, meaning that it has the properties of both gas and liquid resulting from a specific temperature and pressure. CO2 is one of the few chemicals that can become a supercritical fluid without extreme temperature and pressure.
Incidentally, a similar process using supercritical CO2 is used to "organically" decaffeinate coffee beans.
And I would imagine that the organic cleaners' equipment wouldn't just release the CO2 into the atmosphere but even if it did, it probably wouldn't have a large environment impact.
Oh! Oh! I know!
It's a sham.
Organic is like "Green" - it's a word people can slap on things to make eco-guilt turn into dollars.
Organic (chemical def.) = any compound with carbon and hydrogen as elemental constituents. Chances are dry cleaning already utilized such compounds, and FYI, there are a bazillion "organic" compounds that are lethal, carcinogenic, corrosive, and otherwise wholly unpleasant. Botox, formaldehyde, and nitrosamines all come to mind...
I would bet on the first answer; that's a supercritical CO2 process. I know those exist.
Since CO2 sold industrially is mostly captured from the air or as a byproduct of another industrial process, it has no carbon footprint at all.
Of course, I can't rule out that it's just a scam; "ordinary" drycleaning is done with organic solvents, mostly tetrachloroethylene - and I can't blame people for NOT wanting their clothes soaked in that, since it's toxic like most halogenated organics.
So they use liquid CO2 to clean clothes? I wonder what that does to your carbon footprint.