It’s Time for Dry Cleaners to Stop Using Plastic Film
Elizabeth Segran | August 3, 2022 | Fast Company
There’s that unpleasant moment when you get home from the dry cleaner: You remove the plastic film covering your clothes, and since most curbside recycling programs won’t accept it, you have no choice but to throw it in the trash and feel guilty about how you’re contributing to the plastic pollution crisis.
You’re right to worry. Every year, dry cleaners use more than 300 million pounds of this plastic film in the U.S. alone. (They are sometimes known as poly bags because they are made from a kind of plastic known as polyethelene.) The vast majority—96%—will end up in a landfill or the ocean, where it will slowly break into particles that eventually end up in the food chain, and inside animals and humans. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Beyond Plastics, an organization devoted to ending plastic pollution, is working on a new campaign to get plastics out of the dry cleaning industry. In a report, it points out that disposable plastic film isn’t necessary to protect freshly cleaned clothes, and that cheaper, more sustainable alternatives already exist on the market. But the report argues that dry cleaners will be slow to change on their own, so consumers need to speak up and ask their cleaners to change.
It’s a good time for us to rethink dry cleaning, says Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics president. During the pandemic, when offices closed and formal events were postponed, many dry cleaners had to shutter for long periods, and many closed altogether. But as life begins to return to normal and consumers need their services again, businesses have an opportunity to update their operations. “When it comes to plastic, we tend to focus a lot on single-use plastic in the food industry,” says Enck. “There isn’t a lot of discussion about it in the dry cleaning sector. As people return to work, they might see the enormous amount of plastic they bring home from the cleaners with new eyes.”
