Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Abe Afshari checks out a wedding dress he wet-cleaned.

Wet cleaning is friendly to people, environment

By Sarah Lombardo

Business is picking up at Abe Afshari's cleaning store, Cleaner 2000 on Prospect Road in Saratoga. And, ironically, bad news may be the cause.

The February issue of Consumer Reports, which discusses the dangers of dry cleaning, and the subsequent segment on ABC's Good Morning America, has sparked new local interest in the "wet cleaning" offered at Cleaner 2000, Northern California's first such cleaner.

"We've received a few phone calls, and some people ask more about the wet cleaning," Afshari said. "[Customers] told me they saw it on TV."

The Consumer Reports article focuses on the unnecessary attention paid to "dry clean only" labels and the high cost and health risk that frequent dry cleaning can entail. Perchloroethylene (PERC), the main solvent used in dry cleaning, is the culprit. Classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, PERC has been associated with nervous system and kidney disorders and cancer.

According to the EPA, 300 million gallons of PERC are applied annually in U.S. dry cleaners. The Department of Toxic Substance Control reported in 1996 that drinking water in 15 wells in the Santa Clara Valley and five in the East Bay have been contaminated by the release of PERC.

But Afshari didn't need to know all this to know that dry cleaning could be hazardous to your health; after seven years operating a dry cleaners near Westgate Mall, his own health problems told him something was wrong.

The father of two said he got headaches and had trouble breathing. His doctor told him his daily contact with chemicals was to blame.

Afshari said he considered ending his business. With the support of his wife, Afshari said he began to look into alternatives to chemicals and discovered a technique used in Europe for years called wet cleaning. Using biodegradable soap and water, the system cleans "dry clean only" clothes just as well as dry cleaning does.

But, Afshari said, it has been hard to convince customers of that.

"Customers are afraid," he said. Afshari said that since he switched to wet cleaning and opened his store a little more than a year ago, he has barely broken even with expenses. Customers, he said, fear the new technique and don't trust the claims that "dry clean only" clothes can be safely wet cleaned. Afshari said that in phone conferences with other wet cleaners from across the country, the complaint is the same: Customers don't know about the dangers of dry cleaning and the benefits of wet cleaning.

"This is the problem nationwide," Afshari said. "Everyone says they have the same problem."

But if the customers haven't noticed the environmental benefits of Afshari's business, other agencies have. Last November, Afshari won the pollution-prevention award for small businesses presented by the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation, a public resource center since 1970. And just last week, Afshari was nominated for the Santa Clara County-sponsored Susan Wilson Environmental Award for pollution prevention in the small-business category.

Combined with the recent increased public awareness of the alternative to dry cleaning, Afshari said things are looking up.

Afshari said he has been receiving customers from as far away as Santa Cruz and Palo Alto, in addition to his local Saratoga customers.

"We got a good response from the area," he said. "Business so far is steady."