Ron Benjamin

Of course, all of our feeds have been inundated with information surrounding the coronavirus (COVID-19) for weeks, and that has amplified over the last week, for obvious reasons. Here at the GreenEarth home office, we have received several inquiries about the effect that GreenEarth Cleaning has on the coronavirus and we’d like to address that to the best of our ability. So, these are the facts that we know at this point in time:   Because GreenEarth’s pure D5 dry cleaning fluid has the highest flash point of any of the alternative solvents (170F), the GreenEarth dry cleaning process allows the clothes to be dried at the highest drying temperature, 158F, which is equivalent to 70C. At this point in time, the specifics of the epidemiology of the COVID-19 virus have not been identified. However, the World Health Organization issued its update to its table of Thermal Inactivation of Bacteria, Viruses, and Protozo in January 2015. As you can see in the table below, many bacteria, viruses, and protozoa are inactivated at 70C or 158F. Additionally, the amount of inactivation is a logarithmic function of the amount of time the temperature is applied. The standard drying time at 158F in the GreenEarth Cleaning process is more than 30 minutes, enough time to inactivate most of the viruses shown. Given the information available at this point in time, because GreenEarth dries at the highest temperature for the longest period of time, we believe it is fair to say, while we do not know the specific behavior of the COVID-19 virus, if it behaves similarly to other viruses that have been tested, the GreenEarth process is the most effective dry cleaning method available to inactivate bacteria and viruses and to potentially inactivate the COVID-19 virus as well. In summary, because GreenEarth uses an environmentally non-toxic dry cleaning fluid in a gentle process at temperatures that inactivate most bacteria and viruses, your GreenEarth cleaner is a trusted guardian for protecting what matters most to you!

Environmental scientists define sustainability as “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.” And, of course, there are times when we can all see obvious objects or events that are harmful to the environment. Recently an article appeared in a local magazine in which Tom Coffman, the manager of Waste Management’s Shawnee, KS recycling plant, is quoted as saying that while “8,000 tons of ostensibly recyclable trash is brought to them each month, there are 1,500 tons per month that can’t be saved.” And while some of it is “off the wall” items that are thrown into dumpsters, like bowling balls and bear carcasses and a live python, there is also an unending tsunami of plastic shopping bags, garden hoses, clothing and anything else that tangles up in the sorting machinery. But while these large objects are easy to spot as being challenges to the recycling effort and thus harmful to sustainability, we in the world of garment cleaning face sustainability challenges that can’t be seen. For those items that we dry clean, we ensure that none of the chemicals being used in the closed-loop process are harmful to either people, the garments being cleaned, or the atmosphere when the small amounts of unseen residual chemicals left on the clothes are released to the air. However, we face a different sustainability challenge that can’t be seen when we launder clothes in water rather than in liquid dry cleaning chemicals. All garments made with synthetic materials, such as polyester, nylon, and acrylics, shed thousands of microplastic fibers during the washing cycle. And when the wash water from the washing machines is dumped down the drain, they dump these microplastic fibers with it, with much of it ending up in our oceans where it becomes part of the marine food chain. Recently the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 800 to 950 tons of microplastic from textiles is released with laundry water annually in Sweden. And while a portion of the microplastic is removed from the water in wastewater treatment plants, another portion remains in the water and is released directly to freshwater and marine water bodies. Additionally, the wastewater treatment plants reintroduce the microplastics removed from the wastewater to the land, and ultimately the air, since the sewage sludge containing the microplastics is spread on agricultural land, used in soil production, or used in landfill cover materials. We at GreenEarth have joined with the Plastic Soup Foundation in the Netherlands and PlanetCare in Slovenia in testing microplastic filters in our GreenEarth Cleaners’ locations. It is our hope that we can remove most of the microplastics from the laundry process before they are released to the wastewater collection system and stop a small unseen sustainability challenge from happening before it starts! For maximized sustainability is our ultimate goal.

The Plastic Soup Foundation has been at the center of efforts to stop the plastic pollution of our oceans. Efforts to remove macro-plastic waste have begun and are highly visible. However, millions of microplastic fibers are released into the world’s wastewater treatment systems when garments containing synthetic materials, such as polyester, nylon, or acrylic, are laundered. This plastic poses an equal danger to our oceans’ ecosystems as it enters the food chain at the micro level. The Plastic Soup Foundation based out of Amsterdam and GreenEarth Cleaning based out of Kansas City, have entered into a long-term agreement to test and install washing machine filters designed and manufactured by PlanetCare based out of Ljubljana, Slovenia, capable of removing microplastics from laundered items. These items, when laundered, release millions of plastic micro­ fibers down the drain through municipal waste water treatment systems and ultimately into our world’s oceans. GreenEarth Affiliates wash some 25 million shirts annually in the United States, and as the largest provider of retail laundry services in the Americas, GreenEarth has been appointed Plastic Soup Foundation’s exclusive service partner in a three-way program between Plastic Soup Foundation, GreenEarth and PlanetCare designed to help keep microplastics out of our oceans. GreenEarth has performed alpha testing on PlanetCare’s initial filter designs and is scheduled to begin beta testing at selected GreenEarth locations in California this summer. A U.S. national rollout is scheduled for 2020. Maria Westerbos, Founder & Director of the Plastic Soup Foundation, said, “We’re excited to enter into this joint effort with GreenEarth and PlanetCare as we continue to seek ways to meet our mission of having no plastic waste in our water!” While we have been focused on achieving maximized sustainability in dry cleaning over our 20 year history, we welcome the opportunity to turn our attention to the emission problems associated with the laundry side of our Affiliates’ business. We intend to provide operational and financial support for Plastic Soup’s overall mission. Mojca Zupan, President of PlanetCare, said “PlanetCare is a leader in providing microplastic filtration, and we welcome the opportunity to join forces with the Plastic Soup Foundation and GreenEarth Cleaning as we work to find ways to help make the elimination of microplastics from washing machines a reality.”

It’s been my good fortune over the course of my 45 year business career to have been involved as a founder/owner with seven different businesses in seven different industries. And one of the lessons I’ve learned is that a business is not about tables and chairs and buildings and computers, rather it’s all about its people. And in the service business, this is even more true than in manufacturing or technology companies. It doesn’t matter what the CEO says should happen. What matters is what happens when the customer interfaces with the company at the point of service. We’ve been blessed over our 20 years at GreenEarth to have had people who care about our mission of providing our industry with better tools to serve the retail customer. And to provide a dry cleaning system that is safer and gentler for people, their clothes, and our planet. I am so proud of the people who have joined our team and the very real commitment each has to serving our GreenEarth Members and, in turn, the customers our Members serve every day. Combined, GreenEarth is a Network of those who are committed to doing the right thing – something that’s becoming more and more rare in our society of “me first” rather than serving others. I trust the next 20 years allow us to remain in the same place of service!