It never ceases to amaze me just how huge the scope is for changing our existing behaviours into ones that would be far more environmentally friendly. I suppose it stands to reason that you could isolate almost any industry and look at their current existing practices and refine them into a more planet conscious approach. All of which means that there’s so much more work to be done and also that dismissing corporate social responsibility as something that belongs as a concern to only the largest corporations would not be accurate.

One such industry that I’d not given much consideration to is professional dry-cleaning, but when you think about it every town has at least one and usually far more than that and a sizable percentage of the population use the services of a dry cleaner on at least a semi-regular basis. It’s probably no surprise to learn that in North America the vast majority of dry cleaners are using solvents that are not especially environmentally friendly at present. Kreussler GMBH a German chemical producer feels that they can change the market completely with their new invention which would fly in the face of existing practices through much of the dry-cleaning market here.

The company has been hard at work on developing a new solvent known as SystemK4 (SK4) that could and should revolutionize the industry to being far more planet friendly than the middling ground that is currently taken by most companies. At present the German company has very little presence in the US and Canada but have led the European dry-cleaning market for a quarter of a century and feel that the new solvent SK4 could see them make inroads here that were previously impossible. SK4 is being promoted as a solvent that is completely “innovative, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, biodegradable and safe for ground, water and humans”. Richard Fitzpatrick is the VP of operations at the Tampa office of Kreussler Inc:

“We feel very strongly that this is historically our opportunity to change the industry and move it away from halogenated common solvents in many dry-cleaning establishments currently,”

The company’s strength in Europe has been within the textile industry creating detergents and additives for dry-cleaning solvents but the commercial venture into this market looks to be ideally timed as many dry-cleaning operations understand the need to change their practices but are still weighing up alternatives. At present the industry standard is the less environmentally friendly solvent called perc (perchloroethylene) which while being an improvement over what was used a generation ago does not offer the same very credible capacity of SK4 and proven research shows that it enters the groundwater system and can be hazardous to both humans and animals. It also adds to issues which affect air quality as part of a photochemical smog, you can read more about the solvent via this EPA report.

At present about 20,000 perc dry-cleaning machines are in active use in the US alone which constitutes some 80 percent of the market.  Fitzpatrick explains that the SK4 could be the industry standard within a decade while providing the same or better performance in terms of cleaning and ease-of-use it would also provide far safer conditions for workers and a vast reduction in environmental impact. Sign me up!

You can learn more about Kreussler’s SK4 by following this link.