By Peter Montague
Can reliance on the marketplace by itself control pollution? Here we examine a case study — the dry cleaning industry.
There is nothing dry about dry cleaning. All materials processed by dry cleaners are soaked in toxic solvents. A few cleaners (about 6%) use Stoddard solvent. The other 94% use perchloroethylene, or "perc" as it is known in the business.
Perc is a hydrocarbon derived from petroleum, with chlorine molecules attached. As a "chlorinated hydrocarbon", perc shares certain characteristics with other chlorinated hydrocarbons: they tend to be soluble in fat and not in water (and therefore they tend to accumulate in fatty tissues as they pass through the food chain); they tend to persist for a long time in the environment; and they tend to be toxic. Perc has all of these characteristics.
There are 35,000 dry cleaning establishments in the United States and Canada. Together they use 136 million kilograms of perc each year. Of this, 6 million kg is recycled; the remaining 130 kg are released into the environment. According to estimates by US and Canadian researchers, as much as 90% of perc is lost directly to the atmosphere; presumably the remainder is washed down the drain along with process water.
It should be no surprise, then, that perc can be found almost everywhere in the environment, and in much food and water. At 577 sites in the US, perc could be measured in the air at an average (median) concentration of 1 microgram per cubic metre. In the US, a government survey of "finished water" (water taken directly from the tap) of 36 cities showed that 25% of drinking water contains perc at an average concentration of 3.0 parts per billion (ppb). In Canada, 30 potable water supplies (treated water) contained 1 ppb average, 2 ppb maximum.
Fish in the sea contain 0.3 to 43 ppb of perc. Surveys of US food samples have found perc in grape jelly, chocolate sauce, wheat and corn. As you might expect, butter and oil can contain high levels of perc — 100 to 1000 ppb. Perc was detected in seven out of eight samples of human breast milk; after one mother visited a dry cleaning shop and was then tested, her milk contained 1000 ppb of perc — 500 times as high as the US drinking water standard for children. (The alternative, infant formula made with tap water, is likely to be even more contaminated.)
The average exposures of average North Americans to perc are relatively low. However, there are a few sub-populations who may be getting very high exposures: dry-cleaning workers, and people who live in or near buildings that house dry cleaners.
A study of 950 dry cleaners in New York reveals that 700 of them are housed in buildings that also have residential apartments. Many of these apartments can be expected to have higher-than-normal levels of perc in the air. In extreme cases, buildings near dry cleaners can smell almost as strongly of perc as the dry cleaning establishments themselves; an estimated 1 million Americans live in such circumstances today.
Most people know what perc smells like because they carry perc home on their freshly dry-cleaned clothes, and it is then released into their homes.
An estimated 537,000 people in North America work in dry cleaning establishments where they may be exposed to average levels that can exceed 170 ppm (parts per million) in the air, though the levels have been dropping in recent years in response to government regulation and enforcement.
From studies of these workers (and of people drinking perc-contaminated water), it has been shown that perc causes nervous system disorders (headaches, nausea, dizziness and other problems of the central nervous system), infertility and several kinds of cancer in humans, including leukaemia, and cancer of the lung, cervix, liver, pancreas, skin and oesophagus.
Indirectly, perc contributes to destruction of the earth's ozone layer. When perc degrades in the atmosphere, about 8% of it turns into carbon tetrachloride, which is a powerful ozone-depleting chemical. Perc from dry cleaners releases up to 9.5 million kg of carbon tet each year.
The good news is that there are readily available alternative cleaning technologies that do not rely on toxic chemicals; that are more profitable for the owner or operator; and that would create 33,000 more jobs if the whole US dry cleaning industry were to make the switch.
The new technology is known as "multiprocess wet cleaning". It relies on a combination of water, natural soaps, steam and heat to clean clothing. Careful inspection and cleaning of garments is done by a skilled technician who decides which technique will best clean a garment on an individual basis — as opposed to dry cleaning, where garments receive a standard treatment. In other words, the new technology substitutes information, skilled judgment, and labour for toxic chemicals, increasing both jobs and profits.
The US Environmental Protection Agency ran a pilot test of the new technologies — which Greenpeace has dubbed greenclean — and EPA reports that greenclean "is economically competitive and performs as well as, or better than, traditional dry cleaning". EPA calculations show that dry cleaners who convert an existing shop or start up a new greenclean operation will increase their profits by 5% and their return on investment by 78%. Converting to greenclean will also provide more skilled jobs because it requires 21% more labour.
A survey of more than 350 customers revealed that customers preferred greenclean over dry cleaning in terms of overall quality of cleaning.
So here is a clear place for the market to prove itself. A dangerous, polluting technology should be driven off the market by a cheaper, cleaner, more profitable alterative, if the pure-market boosters are right.
Unfortunately, all indications are that the switch cannot take place without increased government intervention. Most dry cleaners are very small operations; they can't take the risks involved in any changeover until the technology has proven itself to be a market success. Likewise, the technology cannot develop many customers and prove itself until the change has occurred. In sum, it's a chicken-and-egg problem.
Dry cleaners, being small, get their information chiefly from other dry cleaners and from vendors of chemicals and equipment. Chemicals and expensive equipment are absent from greenclean, so vendors aren't pushing it. Finally, many garments today are labelled "dry clean only" and wet-process cleaners are reluctant to take on the liabilities involved in ignoring such a label; labelling standards in the garment industry will have to change.
Government — acting on its clear mandate to protect public health and safety — could make it happen. By placing an eco-tax on perc, the government could pay for a program of information, demonstration and technical assistance to small dry cleaners, to help them evaluate the changeover for themselves. And who besides government can alert consumers to the real hazards of perc? In the ideal case, government would ban the sale of dry cleaning equipment that relies on dangerous toxic chemicals like perc.
Can market mechanisms clean up the dry cleaning industry? Apparently not, at least not by themselves.
[From Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly.]