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Dry Cleaning: Not Really Dry(!) · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, we're back for the new year. We hope
• 0:02
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• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here and we are ready to martinize
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the heck out of you in one hour or less.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you like heavy starch, medium guy.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: You want a double crease in your pant legs. I
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: had to look that up. Have you ever heard of
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: such a thing?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I got a triple crease? What are you talking about?
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: No, for real, have you heard of a double crease before?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I demand to know.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think so, because I'm not someone who often
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: uses a dry cleaner.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: You and a lot of people these days, pall. Apparently
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the pandemic just crushed dry cleaning because people stopped going
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: to the office as much, which means that they stop
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: needing clothes that required dry cleaning as much. But even
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: before that, people had sorry to work from home a
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: little more and the office had gone much more casual
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: than before. So dry cleaners have been hurting for a while.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I don't have much of a need.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: If there's a particular stain or something that I'm really
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: dying to get out of a piece of clothing, what
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: is that, I'll take it into a dry cleaner. Uh.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: But I was taught at a very young age how
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to launder and iron clothing, oh neat. But I also
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: don't often have to do that because I rarely have
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: to wear, like, you know, a pressed dress shirt to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a thing.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: You don't put a double crease in your jeans?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: What's a double crease?
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So I looked it up. It strikes me as possibly
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: kind of like a nineteen forties you know, that woolf
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: from the cartoons, kind of zoot suit. Look, okay, maybe
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: those would have double creases. The only thing I could find,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: there's a pair of Benetton pants for women that has
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a double crease, and I'm pretty sure I could find
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: the second one, not one hundred percent, but I guess
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: that's the thing that some people request of the dry cleaners,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: people who ain't quite right. I take it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. My big dry cleaning sort of memory and story
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: is that.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: You have a dry cleaning story.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Well not a story, but I just you know, my
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: best friend in high school, Rat who the cartographer, Hello
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: rad Ye. His dad Wayne had a closet with like
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: twenty five light blue, perfectly dry clean shirts, like twenty
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: five pinklins, twenty five white ones. It was like a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Patrick Bateman esque closet, and I remember just going in
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: there in high school and just being.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Like, wow, were there like leather gloves and a knife
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: stashed behind all this?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: No, Wayne was a good guy, but anyway, that's my
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: dry cleaning memory from high school. I have a stat
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: here that's from twenty seventeen. There were in the United
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: States there were twenty six hundred dry cleaners. I've seen
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: that as high as thirty thousand now. But one thing
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I wanted to point out is that dry cleaners in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the United States eighty percent of their employees slash owners
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: are ethnic minorities of the United States, and majority of
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: which are Korean Americans. And all this just point out
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: as we go along, we're going to talk about the
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: expense of dry cleaning and changing your whole business because
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of government regulations and the fact that these ethnic minorities
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and small business owners that can be a tough thing.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely like a stereotype in the
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: United States that dry cleaners are often owned by people
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: of Korean descent or straight up Korean immigrants. And apparently
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: in the seventies that became a thing. In the same
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: way that we talked about Greek immigrants and their children
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: running diners in the United States, that's true with Korean
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: immigrants and dry cleaners. Apparently a Korean immigrant is thirty
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: four times likelier than the immigrant from anywhere else to
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: open a dry cleaning store in the United States. And yeah,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: these are very small operations. In a lot of cases,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: they're small businesses. And yeah, we'll see there's a lot
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: of financial pressure on them right now that seems potentially
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: fairly unfair.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and we're going to sort of go through
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the process of dry cleaning. We've got a lot of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: requests for this over the years. Yeah, my experience has been,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: at least around here, most of the dry cleaners are
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: storefronts that will take your stuff. There are a lot
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of washers and dryers, like you can do laundry on site,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: but the stuff is sent out. It is not cleaned
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: on site. It goes to a separate facility for the
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: dry cleaning then comes back is on those amazing racks
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that I just I love those things so much. That's
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: spin around, you know, all those close spinning around.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Can't you just imagine like a ham hanging from each
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: one in your kitchen.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I just for some reason I love it. But apparently
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: there are some where they actually do the stuff on site.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: But the first thing we want to talk about is
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the fact that dry cleaning is not dry. It just
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: means they don't use water.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: That's a really important point, and I think we'll probably
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: restate it multiple times throughout this episode, just to make
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: sure we're dry at home, though yes we do, whether
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: we need to or not, I insist.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Let's just camera that simplistic fact home.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is weird. I think it's just kind of
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: a remnant or a relic of the original interpretation of
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: dry cleaning, because it did make sense back in the day.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Today it doesn't hold up. It's not dry at all,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So everybody, I'm sorry to ruin your illusions. Technically it
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: was Chuck who did that, but dry cleaning is fairly old.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: There is a man, a black American named Thomas Jennings,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: who was a tailor in New York City who in
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: eighteen twenty one got a patent for a process of
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: essentially dry cleaning you call it dry scouring, that you
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: could use to remove dirt and grease from clothing without
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: harming the fabric, which is pretty groundbreaking, but it's lost
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: to history. Apparently there was a fire. I want to
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: do at least a short stuff on this, Chuck. There
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: was a fire in eighteen thirty six that destroyed ten
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: thousand patents basically all the patents from seventeen ninety to
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: eighteen thirty six gone in this fire, and that included
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Thomas Jennings patent. So we're not at all sure exactly
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: what the deal was, but we know that he was
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: the first to come up with probably what would be
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: considered dry cleaning.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Jennings himself could be a great short stuff
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: because he is the first African American to receive a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: patent in the United States, and this was forty years
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. And what's so remarkable about
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that is is he was born a free man, but
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: in the patent application, you have to be a citizen
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of the United States, and they granted him that patent,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: thus recognizing him as a citizen of the United States,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: which was a very big deal at the time.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: He also helped to organize something called the Legal Rights Association. Again,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: this is the eighteen twenty eighteen thirties, and that group
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: would challenge people in court with vile lawsuits against acts
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: of discrimination in the eighteen thirties. So that, yeah, he
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: definitely does deserve his own episode. It sounds like two yeah,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: follow up, Okay, a couple of decades later, over in France,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: there is a man named Jean Baptiste Jolie spelled like jolly.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: It's a great name, all three names together with that
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: nice round Baptiste in the middle. He was he made die.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: He was a dier, a dier maker, and he had
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: a tablecloth that was had an oil lamp knocked over
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: on it. Luckily it was probably not lit at the time,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: or else this would have been a totally different story.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: But the.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Flammable liquid inside probably camphene, which is kind of like
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: it's derived from the same stuff as that turpentine is
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: made from it. He found that where it had spilled
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: kind of like cleaned his tablecloth, and he said, you
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: know what, I think I might be onto something here.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because that is we sort of buried the lead.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: It's not dry cleaning, because there is liquid. But what
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the liquids are and always have been, is some kind
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of solvent to clean your clothes. Early solvents were very
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: dangerous and flammable. Sometimes it was kerosene, sometimes it was gasoline. Yeah,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was. Was it the Viscilla
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Axe murder episode where the rugs were super flammable because
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: they had been cleaned with gas.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I think that was it because I know at some
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: point we talked about the fact that gasoline was used
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: to clean stuff, and that's why one of these houses
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: like went up and flamed so quickly.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: It might have been the hinter Kfek murders.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Oh was that a fire?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I'll bet it was the Solder children, the
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: missing Solder children. There was a fire central to that one.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, that may have been it, but I know we
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: talked about it. At some point. They used, you know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: like we said, kerosene, gasoline, turpentine, the resin of which
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: is terpene. And that is why when you go camping
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: you look for what's called like a lighter's not or
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: fat lighter, and that is the very resinous interior of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a pine tree, which is superflammable and that really helps
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: get a fire started. But all this to say is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that stuff was pretty dangerous to use as a close cleaner.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so much so that like dry cleaners would explode
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: from time to time, so that dry cleaning facility that
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the storefronts would send their clothes to would be located
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: on the outskirts of town because it was a very
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: very dangerous place, and after they started to move away
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: from more flammable solvents, they replaced them with synthetic compounds,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: specifically carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethylene, which worked ish. I think
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the reason that people were kind of bullish on them
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: is because they didn't blow up, But there were a
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: lot of other problems with them, like just as an industry,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the carbon tetrachloride corroded your machinery, the trichloroethylene was really
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: harsh on your clothes, and both of them would give
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: you cancer and disrupt your neurological system too.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Before they try these, they tried a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: kind of mineral spirit called Stoddard solvent, which I think
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that may have been flammable too. Yeah, But where they
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: eventually landed is on something called perchloroethylene or PERK as
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: we're going to call it as everybody calls it.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Is it perchloro?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure is p e erc And that became
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: sort of the go to for a long long time.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It still is the go to percentage wise, and we'll
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: get to all that later, but it was much safer
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to use. It did a better job of cleaning. The
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: equipment was smaller. It was kind of better in every
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: way as far as those previous alternatives. Yeah, that as
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we'll see, it ate so great.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: One other thing that was so alluring about it is
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: those dry cleaning facilities could come back into town now
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: and your little storefront could actually be the dry cleaning
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: facility because it required such less floor space. And this
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: solvent was just like a miracle, like you could get
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: people's clothes done in an hour. And actually it was
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: the guy who started one hour Martinizing, who was a chemist,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: who was the one who went back and was studying
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: pair chlora ethylene as a potential solvent and brought it
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: into the dry cleaning industry and started one hour martinizing shops.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: And the reason they could do it in an hour
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: if you paid them enough was because they had the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: facilities on site.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And his name was Gabby Johnson. I don't think so, No,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: was it something Martin?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Okay, I can't remember his first name, but
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: his last name is definitely Martin.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Because johnsonizing just sounds dirty.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Let me go out and Johnson eyes.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: It really does. Yeah, I'm like, I'm blessing right now.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So, like I said, we're going to talk more about
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the sort of the downsides of perk. But even at
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: the time when they were like, Hey, this is so
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: much better and safer, you're like, but geez, working in
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: this thing all days, Like I'm like, my breathing is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a little weird and my eyes are irritated and I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: get a little bit dizzy and stuff like that.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Does anyone else see the elves?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone's like, yeah, but it's not flammable. It's not
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: turpentine or kerosene, so it's better.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some of these things. I think per chloroethylene is
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: actually related in some way to chloroform. So these early workers,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: especially before we had any kind of handle on just
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: how bad perk actually is for you, we're handling this
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: really tough stuff. And we'll definitely talk a lot more
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: about perk later on. But the uh, well, should we
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: take a break and then talk about what happens when
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: you drop your clothes off at a dry cleaning place?
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I think, so, okay, well, everybody, we're gonna take a
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: break and then come back and talk about what happens
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: when you drop your clothes off at a dry cleaning place.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Get I say something. Yeah, before the break, you sounded
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: like John Wilson.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Is that the guy who started one hour martinizing?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: No, have you seen John Wilson's TV show How To
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: with John Wilson?
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I can't say that I have.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: It's great. I had a three season run and it's fantastic.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Does he have a glasses and kind of sandy blonde hair?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: He has glasses, but he's never seen on screen.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: So, oh no, I'm not sure who that is.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Then, yeah, her the show, but he also sort of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: talks like this as a narrator.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, he sounds like my kind of guy.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: It's very fun, it's a great It's one of my
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: favorite shows, so highly recommended. But this is not about
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: John Wilson. This is about although he may do a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: show called how to Get Your Clothes Clean, this kind
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of thing he does, but when you drop your stuff
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: off at a dry cleaner, and we'll kind of whiz
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: bang through this first part because it's it's certainly not
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: super interesting, but they're gonna inspect your clothes. One reason
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and they're going to do that is to see like
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: where the lasagna stain is or if it's not stained.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: If it's just a regular old Hey, I'm Wayne Smith
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: and I want to get all my shirts perfect, they
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: are going to go over it so they can cover
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: their own butt. As far as when people come back
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, the button's missing, they can say, sorry,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: sir or ma'am, your button was missing when it came
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in here, because we wrote it down and showed you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, peep the sticker chump.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: This is kind of what they're famous for saying. If
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: they do find some stain that they're like, oh, I
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: don't know about this one. It could be tough. As
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: we'll see, the different types of stain require different types
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: of treatments. They'll pre treat it, and then the dry
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: cleaning takes place, and this is where the magic happens.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: I really feel like this is some good stuff here.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. So here's what happens. We repeat the fact
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: that it just means no water, your clothes are still
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: getting wet.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, say it again?
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Well I just did. Can't we say it another time?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Sure?
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: All right, no water, that's all dry cleaning means.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets wet. Your clothes gets super duper wet,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: soaked even but not in water instead in an industrial
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: synthetic solvent perk, the perk that we've talked about.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they do this in huge machines. And you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: these cleaning machines are not that different from just sort
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of your garden variety industrial wet laundry machine as far
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: as I can tell.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there what's called dry to dry machines, meaning
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: that the washer and the dryer are housed in the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: same machine. It's the same drum you put the clothes in.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Once they get washed, they get dried in the same
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: little drum, and then you pull them out.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens. The cycles are much faster, and you know,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: there's all kinds of things that we'll talk talk about
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that make it different. But if you put it in there,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it's still got a drum that's gonna spin and jostle
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: your clothes around twenty two one hundred pounds depending on
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: how big the machine is. It is a stainless steel
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: basket that's perforated for drainage and stuff like that. It's there.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: They're super robust because perk is about seventy percent sixty
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: nine percent in fact, heavier than water is. Yeah, so
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: it's this stuff's heavy. It's all just super juiced up motors,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: heavy duty equipment.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean they shoot a lot of perk
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: at this stuff. I think on the order of like
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: twenty five gallons an hour. They really johnsonize the clothes withever.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: But what's cool you said that there's a lot of
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: differences between these these industrial dry cleaning machines and like
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: say an industrial washer dryer, And the key difference is
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: that that perk, the solvent that you use as the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: cleaning agent, it's recovered to the greatest extent possible. We've
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: reached what are called fifth generation machines. First generation machine
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: was a washer, and then over here was a dryer.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: And when you were dry cleaning something you moved it
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: from the washer to the dryer, you got perk everywhere.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: You got it all over yourself, you got it all
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: over the floor, and you wasted a lot of it.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: And some of the older machines you would have to
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: refill the perk that was used and recovered in this
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: machine every couple of months. Now it's on the order
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: of every couple of years. That's amazing, Yeah, because this
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: perk doesn't really break down very much and it stays
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: a viable solvent for years and years and years if
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: you keep it in this closed system.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it separates from water as well, right.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, because it's again it's seventy percent heavier in the water.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Water floats on top of it, and most of these
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: machines feature a little mouse that comes along with a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: tiny little snow shovel who's very happy to move the
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: water out of the way with its snow shovel and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: water skis.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Yep, that's right. There are also things like carbon absorbers.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: There are inductive fans. They have these sensors that will
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: lock everything if there is like if the perk level
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is too high, you can't even open it. So they
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: got to get as much of that perk out of
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that thing before you open the door, which has made
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: things much much safer. But again, perk has some dirty
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: secrets that we're going to reveal later on. Yeah, but
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: this thing is, you know, you're looking to get clean
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: solvent by pumping out that perk through a filtration system.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And even though, like you said, there's spraying a ton
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of that stuff in.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: There, Yeah, usually about twenty five gallons a minute, So
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: like I think there'll be two hundred gallons over like
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: an eight minute cycle pumped in and there's not two
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: hundred gallons of perk in there at any one time.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Is new perk is coming in. The old perk that's
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: gone through the clothes already and is clinging to dirt
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: is filtered out right. So this is like this constant
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: process of perk, old perk, new perk coming in, old
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: perk going out through these filters and everything. And then
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: when the cycle's done and all the perk spun out
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: and it's been removed from the basket, they heat the
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: basket to vaporize the remaining perk, and then that also
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: gets captured because they run that through condenser coils to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: turn it back into liquid and put it back in
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: the filtered perk reservoir. It's a pretty astounding machine that
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the dry cleaners use for this stuff. But it's really
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: it's just impressive like this, the leaps and bounds that
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: they've gone through to figure out how to maximize the
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: lifetime of a perk molecule and minimize the chance that
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: it will be lost.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Something I've done a lot of the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: past two days is watch dry cleaning videos.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, tell me you saw the one.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know what was the one.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: It's called what is dry cleaning? Does dry cleaning work?
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: On YouTube? Did you see that one? No?
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I watched a lot of similar ones. I love processes
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: like this so I can watch things like this and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: stay riveted. I thought it was genuinely interesting. And one
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: thing this article points out is that quality control can
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: you know, like how your clothes come out in the end. Basically,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: it's not just like, you know, they got the machine,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: so that's what it does. It's human beings that are
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: overseeing this stuff and making sure that everything comes out
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: exactly right if they are, you know, if they're doing
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: it the right way. And I saw a lot of
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: videos where they were owners and operators talked about how
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: important it was to have humans inspecting each and everything
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that comes out, yeah, and making sure it like passes
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: their their rigorous standards.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you don't keep your filters clean, I'm
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: guessing like after every cycle, essentially that perk's not going
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: to get filtered as much, so you're going to be
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: using dirty perk solvent and that has a really terrible
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: effect on clothes. It can make close dingy, right, it
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: can make close dingy over time. Perk interacts with colors,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: so it can actually strip the dye from some colors
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: and then bring it into other colors in the next load.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: If you have a good dry cleaner, they're going to
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: clean their filters frequently, and if you keep up with that,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: then yeah, the quality is going to be through the
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: roof essentially.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, So if hopefully your quality control is through the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: roof at your local dry cleaner, they're going to take
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: that garment out, inspect it and then say, sometimes, well,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you know what, the machine and the perk did not
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: get all the stain out, but I think I can
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: do this as with my own two hands. And so
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: this is called post cleaning spot removal, and that is
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: just extra post cleaning processes that is done by a
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: person to make sure that stain gets out.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, because dray cleaning facility, they have a whole array
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: of solvents that are specifically four different types of stains
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: and apparently you can divide two stains into two general camps.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: You've got wet type stains which are wet in nature
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: like tea, wine something like that. You have dry side stains,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: which are typically grease or oil based rather than water based,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and depending on those, you need either a solvent for
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: the dry type stains or some sort of water solution,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: usually with enzymes like shout or something like that for
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the wet type stains. And depending on that type of stain,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: they'll use a specific kind of solvent in the post
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: spotting or the pre spotting. But that's why it's really important.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: If you take your clothes to the dry cleaner, don't
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: just throw the shirt at them and be like, peace.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I'll see at five, Like, say, there's this tea stain
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: right here that I just find too stubborn to even
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: begin with. I can't even bother with it. But can
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you please get this tea stain out? They'll say, yes,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: you know, that's a wet side stain. You'll say, I
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: don't care, just get the stain out, and then you
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: leave and say peace. I'll see you at five. But
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: at least you've told them very rudely. You've told them
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: about that stain, and they'll treat it accordingly.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as you yourself pre treating a stain,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: you know, if you ask your dry cleaner, they're probably
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: gonna say that could make it worse. Don't bother, or
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: it doesn't do anything, don't bother. I mean, there are
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: various sort of home recipes that you will find on
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the internet if you've spilled things like wine.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: There's a lot out there.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of them. So I don't know. I'm
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: not gonna give advice either way on that because I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: think sometimes that could help, but I don't know enough
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: about it. It also could make the stain worse, So
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. I'm gonna say, you know, you're on
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: your own.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I found a short article on the internet, Chuck, that
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: was by the Smithsonian's preservationists about how to remove stains.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, pretty sure these people know how to
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: remove old stains, so I would go with whatever advice they're.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Giving, all right, So in lieu of repeating it, you're
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: just gonna say, ask the Smithsonian what they.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Think, pretty much. And then there's one other other thing
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: I want to shout out, which appropriately a shout because
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: if shout didn't exist, I would have to buy new
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: T shirts every week. Essentially, I'd spill stuff on myself
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: all the time. It's really strange, but shout works really,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: really well. And I love it. I love shout so much.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: And I went online and found that there's a shout
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: like ask shout how to treat a particular kind of stain.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: So there's like some different criteria put in and then
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: shout tells you what to do, what shout product will
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: work or what you know whether you should try, you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: heat or whatever. And I thought that was a very
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: helpful sight as well.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think i've ever used shout.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Oh so good.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Emily won't allow that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Now shout specifically too. I'm not talking about any competitor.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: I'm talking specifically about shout.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: What's your question.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: I don't have a question. I just wanted to make
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: sure everybody knows how much shout helps my life.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I got y'all thought you were asking if shout specifically
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: was what Emily won't allow on that.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: No, no, but let's get to that. Why is Emily
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: opposed to shout?
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean we've been all through this and Emily's
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: all natural sort of Oh the Kims, Sure, yeah, but regardless,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that's fine. I've got some stained shirts probably as a result.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Bring them to my house. I'll secretly wash them with shout.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Some stains won't come out. I mean, that's just the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: fact of the matter. A dry cleaner can do their
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: very best, but if a dry cleaner can't get out
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of stain, that means that that stain is just forever there.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Yep, you just set that shirt on fire and say,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: no one could love.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: You now exactly. To me, the finishing process is the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: most interesting because when you're walking through Waynsmith's closet and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: you see all those shirts so perfectly pressed, a little
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: stiff for me, but that's how Wayne liked him. I
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: always was like, how in the world, Like, what is
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: going on there to get these things looking like that
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: or that double crease?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Sure he was one of those people.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: This is all called the finishing process, and it is.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: These are the videos. They're a lot of fun to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: watch on YouTube in my opinion.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's pretty nuts. They have like a specific
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: machine for each one of these things. And again you
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: kind of touched on it, like this is a very
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: automated process, but there's humans overseeing the automation at like
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: every step of the way, so there's like people working
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: in conjunction with machines. It's kind of beautiful in a way.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: What I hope the futures like rather than the machines
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: just completely dominating us into extinction. But I saw some
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: probably some of those same videos you did, where they'll
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: like take a shirt and then puff it up with air.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Suddenly it's like an invisible person's in the shirt and
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: then they're running like steamed through it and getting like
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: the press to it. It's pretty neat.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. They put it on this form called
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a shirt buck, or it could be a double buck
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: or a triple buck if there are several of these,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: and it's it's basically like a almost like just a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: torso form. And when they blast this steam in there,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: it's not like when you have a steamer at home,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: like a home steamer and you have a you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: something hanging in you're sort of gently steaming it. It
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is blasting steam in there, like you said, to where
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: it puffs up, whether it's pants or whether it's on
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: a shirt buck. And while it is they do this
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: while it's wet. Then they blow it out with that
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: air in a very violent manner to where it puffs up,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and at that point the shirt looks really good to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: my eyeballs, or the pants or whatever, but that that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: is not it because they still go through a ironing process,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: whether it is a sort of an ironing board with
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a big, large press that closes down like a coffin lid,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: or a huge line of human beings with irons that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: are connected to a had like a tube coming from
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the ceiling into the back of the iron, which what
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I assume is delivering steam so they didn't have to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: keep like refilling the iron with water. And they are
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: there are human beings ironing I saw in case it matters.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: The toughest thing and the most time consuming to press
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: are chinos or any kind of cotton pant.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I would not have guessed, oh, because they take another
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: like you can so easily wrinkle them while you're pressing
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: one part of it. I guess gotta be because that's
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: my experience.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's it's pretty amazing. And that's when those
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: things and when you when there are interviews with these people,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: they're really you can tell they're into making this stuff
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: look perfect.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something we should say that I'm not sure if
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: we've gotten across, but in the dry cleaning process, your
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: clothes actually get wet. But in addition to that, there's
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: a reason why a lot of kinds of clothes say
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: dry clean only. It's because they're very delicate fabrics. They're
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: fabrics that could shrink very easily. That's one of the
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: big problems with water. Water penetrates fabric and so it
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: can actually collapse, like the tension of the weave. It
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: can cause like in like wool, I saw that wool
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: hair fibers have scales that the water basically makes stick together,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: and so water shrinks things. Dry cleaning solvents don't actually
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: penetrate the fabric. They manage to get stains off, but
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: they don't they don't do anything that would cause like
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: your your your shirt or your sweater or whatever to shrink.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: And they're much more delicate on the garment itself, Like yeah,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: it tumbles and all that stuff, but it's much softer,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: much more delicate. So there's a reason why some things
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: say dry clean only, and there's so that's essentially the
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: point of dry cleaning is it treats fabrics much more
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: gently in the process and in the types of chemicals
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: are used.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even if you're just standard clothing, like
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the washing and drying process at home is just it's
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: rough on clothes periods. Sure, that's what causes a lot
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: of like wear and tear on your clothes. It's not
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: necessarily from literally wearing it, but just that washing and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: drying process is just it's tough, you know.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it is. Plus it's time consuming.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you ever do that? Do you ever do that?
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Deal like when you were a single guy, where you
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: would drop your laundry off and have someone else do it.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: I I think I might have in college, although this
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: could be one of those things where I'm like making
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: up a memory just to you know, sound like a
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: big shot, but I I think maybe once. But no,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: for the most part, I would do it myself. Now.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: U mean's like I got the laundry, I know what
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I'm doing. You just spray shout on your stuff and
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I'll wash it.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did it occasionally back in the day when
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I was super broke, I would scrape up enough money
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: to have someone do my laundry because it was just
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: there was nothing like it. You know.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. Man. I got one other thing. Do you
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: have something with other brand? None?
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: You know how they put plastic over your your dry
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: cleaning when you take it home.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that process is even cool.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: It is pretty cool. It's a machine with a human
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: working with the machine, is it not. Okay, So that's
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: intended to get your stuff home, to keep your dirty,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: nasty Cheetos filled car from getting your new clothes cleaned
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: or your new clean clothes dirty. When you get it home,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: you want to take it off. You want to take
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: the plastic off and recycle it. You can recycle plastic
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: like that. It's called plastic film at your grocery store
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: along with your plastic grocery bag. So don't throw it away,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: recycle it, but get it off your clothes immediately when
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: you get home, because it can actually really become harsh
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: and just trapped in the clothing under the plastic. You
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: don't want to just store your clothes in plastic in
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: your closet.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: If I walk into your closet and you got a
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff hanging there in dry cleaner bag, I'm
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: calling the police because I'm in fear for my life.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: For sure, because there's probably a person in one of
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: those backs too, right.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know who never I never saw that,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: And you know whose closet? I never saw that?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: In Rad's dad, Wayne Smith, that's.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Right, No way, all right? Should we take another break?
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna come back and basically the rest
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of the episode is going to be about chemicals. All right.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: We promised talk of chemicals, and that's what we're gonna do,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: because we're going to talk a lot about perk. Just statistically,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: we can go ahead and throw out some numbers. Sixty
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: to sixty five percent of dry cleaners in the United
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: States still use perk. That sounds high, fairly high. It's
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: higher in Europe about eighty five percent.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: That's higher.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good average, because I did see other numbers,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: but that looks to be about the average. And I
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: also found this that a lot of EU countries have
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: mandated fifth generation machines, although you could get a there
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: are allowances if you have a fourth generation, if you
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: do all this other stuff. In the US you can
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: have if you have a second generation machine. There are
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: no first generation anymore.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Basically, yeah, that was the separate washer dryer. Yeah.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have a second generation machine in the US,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: you can upgrade it. I'm sorry, you have to upgrade
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: it to at least a fourth And if you have
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a third. It can actually be retrofitted to make it
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: a fourth, but they're not selling or installing anything anymore
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: unless it's a fifth generation.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: I gotcha, unless you like know a guy.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's because perk is a neurotoxin and it
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: causes all sorts of problems with people and the environment.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We talked about how the stuff that perk replaced
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: turned out to be neurotoxins. Well, perk's are neurotoxin too,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: which I mean just the fact that it's related to
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: chloroform is probably something of a giveaway. But it's even
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: worse than anyone thought. And in the nineties the United
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: States EPA started being like, hey, we've been studying this
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: perk on the side here, and it's actually really bad.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: It can do some magical stuff, like for all intents
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: and purposes, it's magic in the way that it can
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: move through the environment. For example, when we talked about
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: those transfer machines truck where you would take the wet
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: perk laden laundry and move it into the dryer.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Spill Perk'll do it home exactly, per.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly, But imagine it's perk dripping on your floor. That
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: perk is able to travel through concrete, through soil and
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: get into groundwater. And even while it's getting into groundwater,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: other molecules of perk are getting stuck in the little
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: air pockets, vaporizing and spreading elsewhere, and then going up
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: into neighboring buildings and people are breathing it in there.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: And again, this is a neurotoxin, it's a carcinogen, and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: it is the thing that has fueled the dry cleaning
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: industry for the last eighty years. And we're just starting
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: to realize that if you have an old dry cleaning
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: facility that you own, it's probably a super fun site
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: and you're going to have to spend an eye popping
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: amount of money to clean it up or else you'll
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know about go to jail, but you certainly
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: will never be able to sell the place.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was reading up on some EPA studies and
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: they followed a group of Cape Cod communities in this
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: one study because apparently there was a lot of perk
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: in their area, a lot of perk prolonged perk exposure,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and they found that it was in the drinking water
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: in these Cape Cod communities. And in these communities they
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: found a host of pregnancy related issues over the years,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: as well as an increased risk of bipolar disorder, illicit
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: drug use PTSD, vision problems, and some kinds of cancer. Wow,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: you know, not going to say like every single bit
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: of that is perk, but this was a very long
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: term study over this community or these communities that were
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: kind of riddled with perk exposure. And it's so bad
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: that the EPA said by December twenty twenty, it's legal
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: to use it, but you can't be in a like
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: a residential building. You can't be on the ground floor
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of a New York City apartartment building and still be
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: using perk. And states like California, of course, have completely
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: banned perk as of this year. Well, is this coming
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: out next year this year?
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: As of Yeah, it's coming out next year. So we're
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: talking about last.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Year, yeah, which is twenty twenty three.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they said we're done, it's over, like we're
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: you can't use perk anymore. And not only that, we're
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: requiring you again, remember these small business owners to pay
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: for these cleanups. Like as I think the Small Business
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Administration passed a rule that said, if you own a
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: dry cleaner or you own a building that has historically
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: housed a dry cleaner, even decades ago, you have to
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: pay an environmental consultant to come in and tell you
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: whether your site's contaminated. And I think there was a
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: two thousand and two Florida study. This is two thousand
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: and two, so there was the I couldn't find a
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: more updated one, but it said that they found eye
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: cleaner contamination to migrated off site at fifty seven percent
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: of contaminated sites. And a more recent study by the
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: EPA found that seventy five percent of dry cleaning sites
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: are contaminated and they think there's possibly nine thousand and
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: ninety thousand former dry cleaning sites that are contaminated as well.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have to pay sometimes a few million
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: dollars to remediate this site. What's nuts, Chuck. I don't
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: know if you saw in that San Luis Obispo article
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: that even if you're like, if you're a barber shop
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: and there used to be a dry cleaning place in
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: your building, in your shop twenty years before, long before
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: you ever came along and bought the place, you still
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: have to have that environmental study run and then pay
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: for any cleanup that's found. Wow, it's nuts. It's off
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: the rails right now.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, all the damage we were talking
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: about potential risks and damage to humans, that's not even
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you know, covering the damage that it does to aquatic creatures.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: And the fact that this runoff, you know, once it
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: gets into the groundwater and then they runoff in various
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you know, bodies of water really really bad for you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: basically anything in the water.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: So a lot of people are like, well, I'm just
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: going to close up shop, and they're like, you still
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: have to pay for it, you know, like it's it's
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: really a nightmare for people who are just who own
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: these dry cleaning places. And the reason why they have
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: like a real chance or a case saying like why
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: should we have to fut this bill ourselves is because
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: they were following like they often had to get permits
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: in some states to use perk in decades.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Past, so the government gave them.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly so they were following best practices, they were getting
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: the permits they needed to to use perk. And now
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: that everybody's like perk's really bad, you need to clean
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: it up, They're like, well, wait a minute, I need
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: some help here. So I hope just for the the
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: small business owner's sake, yeah, that there's a shift in
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: you know, who needs to pay for this because posedly
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: it's an eight billion dollar problem in the United States alone. Wow.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So obviously, with the problems of perk and the
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: shrinking numbers of people using perk or dry cleaners using perk,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: you're wondering, probably, well, what are they using these days?
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Green dry cleaning is a thing now that is becoming
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: more widespread, kind of slowly, I guess, but that seems
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to be the future. And there are currently four different
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: methods of quote unquote green dry cleaning, and we're going
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to talk about those.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm glad you said quote unquote yeah, because.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Because we're going to talk about some green washing terms
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: here in a minute too.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Sure, big time.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Wet cleaning, We're there, everyone, It uses water. We're back
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: to water. It uses water and these very specialized detergents
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that are basically just easier on your clothes or much milder.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: The EPA says, it's you know, you're not using hazardous chemicals,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: you're not generating hazardous waste, you're not generating air pollution,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and you're not contaminating the water around you. You're not
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: going to be a super fun site if you switch
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to wet cleaning. But that also costs money, and that's
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: why places like King County where Seattle, Washington is is saying, hey,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: you can get a grant to help cover the costs
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: of which is like between forty and sixty grand depending
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: on how big your operation is of switching to this
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: greener wet cleaning.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Right, And some people are like, it's not going to
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: work as well as dry cleaning, and they're like, give
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: it a chance. We've really made some advances. So the
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: jury's out on wet cleaning. But I think just the
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: fact that it's one of the actual green alternatives that
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: is truly green, that isn't green washing. Who knows it
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: might be the future of dry cleaning is wet cleaning,
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: which I wonder if they'll still call it dry cleaning.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I bet they will. You think, so, yeah, you can't.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a there's such brand identity there.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, it's not a brand.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, Uh, tell us about
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: liquid Co two because that's another good one. Huh.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: This one is supposedly totally non toxic, environmentally friendly, and
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: it uses liquid CO two, which you know like the
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: power of oxy or how you use like baking sod
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. Carbon dioxide can actually lift stains
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: off of fabrics. So this is a combination of liquid
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: CO two and gas CO two that's used instead of
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: solvents or I guess as a solvent in dry cleaning machines.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And the problem with these there's very few problems that
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: they actually use CO two that's captured from other industrial sites.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: So the CO two that's being used in these new
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: generation liquid CO two dry cleaning machines would have become
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: air pollution otherwise, so they've figured out a way to
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: divert air pollution into dry cleaning. The real downside of
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: is it's really really expensive to switch over to CO
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: two cleaning machines. I think they're about one hundred and
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: fifty grand each was is like three times more than
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: a perk machine.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like a Gen five perk.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly band name Gen five per Yeah, I think so
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: again one of your early bands before you like really
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: form a good band.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also a one, this is the third one
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: on our list called d F two thousand hydrocarbon solvent.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: This is the one where they're they're using the term organic.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: They're saying this solvent is organic, and that is That
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: is where you got to get a little things get
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a little tricky because organic is very much or very
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: much can be a greenwashing word. I'm not saying that
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: is in this case necessarily, but it can. Okay, well,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: it's very misleading because organic means that it has what
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: Green Earth and we're gonna tell about them in a second,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Green Earth says that just means it has a carbon backbone. Yeah,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: like gasoline is organic. And when you see words like
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: organic or biodegradable like that doesn't mean that it's awesome.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Things can biodegrade into a hazardous substance. Still.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So DF two thousand is produced by Exxon Mobile,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: if that gives you any clarity on whether it's green
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: or not. And even the container it looks like a
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: five gallon jug of motor oil. Essentially there's I think
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Conico makes their own version whatever, and it's a petroleum
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: based solvent just like they used to use back in
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: the day where dry cleaners blue up once in a while.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: If you're using a hydrocarbon solvent. You have to have
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: an air pollution certificate, and it's cheap, like the machines
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: that use them, a way cheaper than a liquid carbon
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: dioxide cleaning machine. But currently it's being you know, tow
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: it as an organic green alternative, so some people are
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: starting to use this, I would guess to their dismay
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: five or ten years down the road, because there are
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: actual like green alternatives, including liquid carbon dioxide and wet cleaning.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The last one on our list here is a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: silicon based solvents and the biggest it's a brand name.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: The largest brand of green dry cleaning processes is called
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Green Earth all one word but still a capital G,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: capital E, and they use liquid silicone, which is odorless
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: and colorless and apparently is a great carrier for detergents.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also inert. So remember we said that perk
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: can interact with your dyes and stuff and cause fading.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: This stuff does not interact with the fabric itself, not
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: chemically at least, so it doesn't It doesn't cause any
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: kind of fading or anything like that, and it breaks
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: down into sand and water and carbon dioxide when you
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: get rid of it, right, Yeah, is is it releases
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: dioxin when it's produced. It's a carcinogen, and I saw
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: somewhere that it's been shown to be. Siloxane has been
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: shown to be carcinogenic in rats and possibly hepatotoxic, which
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: means it affects liver function. So this one is very
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: much touted as a green alternative, but the jury is
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: definitely still out on, you know, whether it's it's non
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: toxic or not.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there are actually people in the world.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I call them that guy that say things like we
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: just don't get any rats to work. There problem solved?
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: Who says that? Just people show them to me.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's been you know, this has been shown
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: to kill rats, and you're like, oh, so don't get
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: any rats around.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I'm with you. It's like, well, hey, how about you
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: get a job doing that, working with it? Then if
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: you have no problems with it, mister smarty pants.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: So I think we should repeat the CEO too. The
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: liquid carbon dioxide cleaning is seems to be the best,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: most green process, but it's just the cost of those machines.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: There's always a downside.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, there's always a downside. I can't think of any
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: wiser words to end this one on.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else, you know. I had to take
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: my rug into a dry cleaner not too long ago
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: down the street, and they were very nice, even though
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: they sent it to a facility and it took far
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: too long to correct this the stain on my rug
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: in my new studio, and I was very mad because
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: it was a brand new I actually wouldn't have stained.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: It had gotten wet and it smelled. It was what's
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: like that sour wet smell.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: From being johnsonized.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Listener mail, Yeah, Chuck.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Said, listener mail everybody, So that means it's time for
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: the listener mail.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: This is from Natalie. Hey, guys, I'm a postdoc research
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: scientist studying paleoclimatology and paleo oceanography. And that's from Natalie
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the en. You guys always do a great job with
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: your Earth science episode. In the recent episode on plate tectonics,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: so it was a bit of a misopportunity though, to
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: highlight a cool gal who played a part in the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics, Marie Tharp. She
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: created the first world map of the seafloor and discovered
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the giant Mountain range between the Atlantic Ocean that we
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: now know is a mid Atlantic range. That's pretty amazing.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Because she is a woman in science, she had to
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: fight a bit of an uphill battle to get her
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: work accepted. She talks about how her initial interpretations were
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: dismissed as quote girl talk. She's she was confined to
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: the background, with her male colleague getting much of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: credit for her ideas until more recently. Seems like a
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: fun person, and Emon mentions how she wanted to include
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: mermaids and shipwrecks in the first map, but her colleague
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Bruce Heasen would have none of it. Come on, Bruce,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: that's fun for sure. There's a great photo of her
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: looking like a ba smoking a cigarette at her drafting table,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: and that is from Natalie.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Thanks a Lott. Natalie. Yeah, it's kind of disappointing we
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: didn't run across her in our research, but maybe we
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: weren't looking in the right places.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Check well, it sounds like there's a pretty good reason
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: for that, So hats off, our beret is off to
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Marie Tharp.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Marie Tharp, look out for an episode on her. At
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: some point in time. Her and our friend Frederick Johnson.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Gabby Johnson.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: No, not Gabby Johnson. You know the guy who originally
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: invented dry cleaning back in eighteen twenty one. Oh, Thomas Jennings.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we should totally do one on Thomas Jennings.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: It was way off with Frederick Johnson.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: That's all right. I think Gabby Johnson can teach you.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: So too well. If you want to get in touch
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: with this, like Natalie did, you can send us an email.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: You can send it to stuff podcast at iheartradiot up.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 52:07
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• 52:11
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