Every year the dry cleaning industry hosts a major trade show creatively titled “the clean show”. However cleaver the name the show always brings out the heavy hitters of the industry showcasing what is hot right now in the world of dry cleaning clothes. Over the last couple of years I started to notice a trend that has been developing year after year at the clean show .
Clean Goes Green
More and more dry cleaners are looking for ways to green up their businesses and attract eco friendly consumers and industry manufactures are coming up with new technologies to satisfy those requests. Being a staunch advocate of small business and the free market system I am happy to see that the dry cleaning industry is following suit in mking those technologies readily available for dry cleaners wishing to “go green”. Sir Austin will be in attendance and will be sure to report the newest technologies that will be on display!!
White Conveyors is a company that offers innovative conveyor and storing solutions for dry cleaners across the U.S. White has been in business for over 55 yrs. and even though they offer conveyors for all types of businesses they got their start in the dry cleaning business. Currently the company boasts over 75,000 conveyors built under their watch in the U.S. and the world over.
The White Conveyor Co. divides their dry cleaner productivity products into three areas: delivery and dry cleaning automation products, conveyors for storage and sorting and assembly products.
Their website is easy to navigate and has product specifications on each page. Although White was based in the dry cleaning industry they also offer innovative delivery and productivity products for other industries as well.
Automated Dry Cleaner Delivery System
The main product that Sir Austin found to be most interesting that White offers is their automated dry cleaning delivery conveyors. Basically they are automated conveyor systems that allow for automated drop off and pick up of your dry cleaning without having to have an employee present.
These boxes allow the customer to pick up their clothes without having an employee present helping to reduce costs while increasing profits. White offers a number of other different productivity products that increase profitability for the dry cleaner so if your in the market be sure to check out their website.
Dry Cleaning Order Assembly System
Another really cool product that White offers is the Mercury Order Assembly System. The system integrates seamlessly with all major POS systems and can sort up to 300 pieces in an hour with only one operator. In an industry where speed and accuracy is a major concern the Mercury OAS is a dry cleaner owners dream.
After each piece is identified in your POS system you then load that data into the Mercurary. After all garments are cleaned and placed on the conveyor the system then effortlessly sorts all of the orders for you and then places them in the correct location for bagging. Sir Austin gives gives the White Conveyor Co. two thumbs up!
Proctor and Gamble is set to open up dry cleaners in Kansas City, Kansas. The company who makes the popular detergent brand Tide is hoping their success in the home cleaning market will spill over into the commercial dry cleaning market. Vice President for business development, Gary Coombe, stated that the three dry cleaners are slated for a mid-September opening.
Dry Cleaning is a Billion Dollar Industry
Coombe stated that P & G sees an opportunity in the $9 billion a year dry cleaning industry. Coombe also stated that being in the cleaning business in some form or fashion for almost 60 years gives P & G a special start. P & G is making the decision to enter the crowded dry cleaning market after researching customers sentiment in the laundry and dry cleaning markets.
P & G is hoping to make it’s mark on the cleaning industry by being a cut above the rest of dry cleaners in the Kansas market. Coombe stated that “We have reviewed customer sentiment and feel that we can be a step ahead of our competition in the Kansas area”.
Not the First Time Big Businesses Try Hand at Dry Cleaning
This is not the first time that a bigger business that is symbiotic with the dry cleaning industry has tried their hand at the cleaning business. The Men’s Warehouse is another bigger business that also has opened up dry cleaning stores as well. They felt that because they already had a market in place for selling suits it only makes sense to open dry cleaning stores to be able to offer those same customers cleaning as well.
Even as P & G is launching “Total Care”, a home cleaning product that is supposed to keep your clothes looking better longer, be more aggressive on stains and also reduce you dry cleaning bill Coombe still sees growth opportunities. P & G stated that their research also indicated that a large portion of customers are not satisfied with their current dry cleaners and this is seen by the company as opportunity as well.
One major dry cleaning leader in Kansas stated that he was not worried because as he recalled P & G never did well with it’s clean at home product Dryel and he did not see much competition from P & G in the dry cleaning market as well.
It’s hard to believe but The Hanger Network can attribute the start of their company to a stain on a carpet. J.D. Schulman, COO of The Hanger Network was once throwing away a bunch of wire hangers that had been compiling in his closet from his local dry cleaner. After cleaning his closet J.D. began to walk across his mothers white carpet and suddenly the hangers punctured the bag dripping gravy all over her new carpet
J.D. soon conceptualized a replacement for the wire hangers that could be thrown away once you had taken off that freshly cleaned dry cleaning garment. The prototype for the eco-friendly hanger quickly went from concept to realty when they found a way to produce a sturdy alternative to wire hangers for dry cleaners everywhere.
Dry Cleaner Hangers 100% Recyclable
The hangers are one hundred percent recyclable and could displace large amounts of wire hangers that are used by dry cleaners everywhere. Sir Austin has well documented his love for customers who recycle their hangers and he loves this idea even more. Dry cleaners in the U.S. use over 3.5 billion coat hangers a year and what ever we can do to limit them ending up in landfills is a great idea
Hanger Network has even found a way to make the hangers free for the dry cleaners who use them and this is by selling advertising on the hangers themselves. The dry cleaning hangers are paid for by advertisers in all types of businesses. Dry cleaning hangers can cost as much as 8-12 cents a hanger and as with any other business dry cleaners are always looking for ways to cut costs.
The Hanger Network already has national companies lining up to buy ads. From the companies standpoint the program is a symbiotic one for both Hanger Networks and the dry cleaners participating in the advertising program. Schulman states “it was a no brainier. Dry cleaners are always looking for ways to save money and with the explosion of green dry cleaners in the U.S. many of them are looking for ways to make their businesses more eco-friendly as well.”
Eco Friendly Hangers Go National
So far the company has partnered mostly with cleaners in the New York metropolitan area but now they are expanding nationwide. Cleaners Supply, one of the largest dry cleaning product distributors in the world has started to offer dry cleaners the hangers on the homepage of their website.
Sir Austin gives The Hanger Network two green thumbs up for helping to make more Eco Friendly dry cleaners in the world.
Wet cleaning clothes can be equated to washing clothes in your home washing machine and then hanging them to dry as opposed to drying them in a drying machine. After the garments are dry they are then pressed. Wet cleaning is definitely the most environmentally safe cleaning method available because the clothes that are being cleaned are washed in water as opposed to a dry cleaning solvent that is manufactured. In addition, wet cleaning is the best cleaning method in terms of removing stains due to the nature of cleaning with water. As stated in previous blog posts water is a more aggressive cleaning agent than pretty much all dry cleaning solvents on the market.
Eco-Friendly Cleaning Drawbacks
However wet cleaning has it’s draw backs. Being a heavier substance, cleaning clothes in water can not only strip color out of garments it can also alter the size and texture of delicate items as well. Therefore wet cleaning clothes is better suited for certain types or garments. However now we have suffisticated laundry machines that don’t agitate the clothes as much as traditional laundry machines. We wet clean a large portion of the clothes that we clean.
Green Cleaning of the Future
Wet cleaning is, in my opinion, going to be the dominant cleaning choice for green dry cleaners in the future. With advancements in wet cleaning machine technology it’s only a matter of time before all garments, including the most delicate ones, will be able to be cleaned in wet cleaning machines and not lose their integrity.
Roy Pearson, an administrative law judge in Washington D.C. has revived his $54 million suit against a local dry cleaner who he claims lost a pair of his pants. Pearson claims that Soo Chung, owner of Custom Cleaners in Washington, owes him over $54 million for loosing a pair of his pants. Pearson’s suit claims that the dry cleaner owes him the exorbanent fee strictly because the store had a sign that read “satisfaction guaranteed” in their window. Pearson claims that the sign is what drew him in to the store, even though he admittedly claims he had no car at the time of infraction and lived within walking distance from the cleaners. Pearson claims that ”(he) would have never tried the store out if it were not for the sign that stated “satisfaction guaranteed”. In the beginning Custom Cleaners agreed to offer Pearson $1200 for a new suit. When he declined the cleaners then offered him $2000 then $4800 and then finally $12,000.
How Pearson Decided on $54 Million
Pearson justifies the monetary amount of the claim due to a statute in Washington law that states that plaintiffs can sue for up to $1500 a day, per infraction. The suit has been going on for more than 1200 days. In addition, the Washington judge is suing for emotional distress north of $500,000 and an additonal $540,000 for legal fees. (EVEN THOUGH HE IS REPRESENTING HIMSELF!).
Defense attorney for Custom Cleaners, Christopher Manning, stated that “this case is cut and dry. It is all about one sign and a plaintiffs gross misinterpretation of law (and a judge no less!)” Manning also stated that many of Pearson’s peers (trial lawyers) even can’t believe the outlandish lawsuit that is “obviously an abuse of power of the judicial system.”
What His Peers Think of The Suit
Bill Schulz, representative for the American Association of Justice, states that “This is incredible as it is shameful. To essentially try and bankrupt this dry cleaner is a travesty of the legal system.’
Because Pearson is a lawyer he has had to spend relatively nothing to keep this case going. On the other hand, Custom Cleaners has been forced to file for bankruptcy due to the mounting legal fees associated with defending themselves regarding this case.
Sir Austin understands paying just restitution for a mistake that has been made. However for Pearson to be able to abuse the legal system in this manner is a shame. The fact that Pearson was not trying to merely receive just compensation from Custom Cleaners but really trying to inflict the most financial harm on the couple is evident by the fact that he turned down $12,000 for one pair of pants!
If our readers feel so compelled, we encourage you to contribute to Custom Cleaners defense fund by clicking on the line below.
To donate to Custom Cleaners Internet defense fund (Click Here)
Below Is a Video Describing Custom Cleaners Account of the Situation
In it’s basic form, pre-spotting clothes in a commercial dry cleaner can be equated to you placing Shout or other home pre treating agent on a freshly laid stain at your annual Christmas party. However 99% of home stain removal products are essentially “one product fits all” stain removal methods. Pre-spotting in a professional dry cleaner is much different. Different types of stains require different stain removal products and being able to identify what type of stain you are dealing with is the first step in being a great pre-spotter. Whether the item is being dry cleaned or laundered will determine the method you will use to pre-spot the garment.
Clothes that are “dry clean only” are pre-spotted on a machine called a spotting board and the process is much more time consuming than pre-spotting clothes that are going to be laundered. This is because you can’t put any clothes that are wet inside of a dry cleaning machine due to the axious nature of dry cleaning solvents. Therefore each portion of the garment that becomes wet from the spotting gun must also be dried by the hot air peddle. Below is a diagram of a spotting board and an explanation of how the entire process works.
Dry Cleaner Spotting Board Controls
-Vacuum Pedal
The vacuum foot pedal causes a sucking motion that allows the garment to hold fast to the end of the spotting board. This makes it easier for the person pre-spotting the dry cleaned item to keep the garment in one place and position the stain in the middle of the vacuum tray. This is important for the next step, applying steam to the stain area.
-Steam Pedal
The steam pedal is the work-horse of the spotting board. Once compressed, 300 – 350 degree steam hits the surface area of the garment and shakes loose the stained area. Commercial dry cleaning steam lines, by far, heat up hotter than any home pre-spotting steam kit on the market. That is because the steam lines are powered by a piece of equipment that powers the entire dry cleaning plant and is built to distribute extreme heat.
-Hot Air Pedal
As stated before all garment surface area that is hit with steam from the spotting gun must also be dried. Once depressed the hot air pedal sends hot air through the spotting gun and dries the area that has been wetted from the steam. The fact that you have to dry the area that is wet from the steam is the main reason that pre-spotting dry cleaning items very time consuming (compared to pre-spotting laundry, explained in Sir Austin’s next blog post).
SIDE NOTE
Although the pedals act independently from each other and accomplish different functions they are always used in conjunction with one another and the person pre-spotting the dry cleaned garment most of the time presses two of them together to combine functions.
-Spotting Gun
The spotting gun could be called the eyes of the different foot pedals and following is the process of pre-spotting a dry cleaned item from start to finish.
Apply steam to the stain. Next you determine what stain removal product will best fit the stain, apply the product and scrape the area with a scraping tool. Then you spray the area with the steam function hopefully lifting the stain. Finally you dry the area and check to see if the stain has been lifted. If it hasn’t the process is repeated until the stain is gone.
The term “dry cleaning” is actually a misleading statement. The word originated during the 1600’s in early Greece when the Mycenaean’s would use a dry compound to clean stains out of their garments. Although the technology used by dry cleaners to clean clothes has obviously changed significantly over time the word dry cleaning has stuck as the term used to describe a method of cleaning clothes.
Most dry cleaning machines are very similar to the front side loaders that you find in laundry mats across Austin. In fact the two machines look and behave almost identically in terms of how they fill the drum of both machines and also how they agitate. Most solvents that are used in the dry cleaning process are far superior when cleaning delicates then cleaning the garments using water due to the fact that they have a lower PH balance then water making them lighter substances and therefore easier on fabrics. Dry cleaning is far superior at removing stains that are fat soluble and are also superior when trying to preserve the color, size and texture of a certain garment. Dry cleaning however is not as effective when removing stains that are water soluble.
Dry Cleaning & Laundry Machines Side by Side
Dry Cleaning Machine Laundry Machine
Another reason for the term “dry” in dry cleaning is because solvents that are used in the cleaning process have little to no water mixed with the substance therefore causing a different reaction on fibers than cleaning clothes with water. Dry cleaning aids in keeping your clothes looking as new as possible by preventing color stripping, size reduction and general fabric distortion due to the fact that all dry cleaning solvents are lighter substances than water and therefore less aggressive cleaning agents. Be sure to tune in to our next post when we explore pre-spotting.
Sir Austin is proud to report that Austin has been named one of four cities in the U.S. to be visited by the United States Mint for the launch of a new program to educate the public about coin money. The U.S. Mint reports that the American public could save as much as $522 million a year if the entire U.S. switched from paper currency to coined money.
Greg Hernandez, Deputy Director of Public Affairs for the mint states “The main advantage for using coined money in place of paper is that coined money lasts on average 30 to 40 yrs. and in addition can be melted down at the end of its life and made into new coins making the currency 100% recyclable. Long term, the GOA (Government Accountability Office) estimates that if America made the choice to use $1 coins in place of dollar bills the U.S. could save billions of dollars over time.
The U.S. Mint also reports that even though prices are down from last year it still costs the government a little more too print pennies and nickels than the coins are actually worth. On the flip side the $1 dollar coin is actually a good investment for the U.S. Mint. $1 dollar coins cost around .20 per coin to print giving the Mint a great Return of their investment.
Austin’s Progressive Populace Recognized
In a definite compliment to Austin residents the Mint stated that Austin was chosen as one of the four cities for the pilot program because of Austin’s progressive populace. The Mint also stated that Austin area residents were open to various types of new conservation programs such as renovations in recycling and the like. Deemed the “Real Change Exchange” the program hopes to educate as many people as possible on the benefits of using the lowly circulated currency.Hernandez stated that “the Real Change Exchange has been well welcomed by Austin businesses evidenced by the fact that more than 200 Austin businesses have already signed up to participate”. There are no plans to scrap using the greenbacks just yet but if Hernandez had his way Austin would serve as a test market for the country to wean itself off of paper currency and onto the currency of the future.
Sir Austin is proud to shine a spotlight on a unique and extremely thoughtful wedding organization, the I Do Foundation. Sir Austin came across the organization and fell in love with the idea. The I Do foundation “helps engaged couples bring a charitable focus to their marriage” by giving them a medium through which the couple can make giving to others the central tenant of their marriage. Sir Austin believes that there is no better way for two people to start a life together than by making giving the focus of their union.
While Sir Austin is an ELIGIBLE bachelor he one day hopes to have a philanthropically focused wedding. The I Do Foundation is a great way to make that hope come true by giving you multiple outlets to give back. One of the creative ways the I Do Foundation makes this possible is by giving marrying couples the option to bypass traditional gift registries and opt instead for a chariatable gift registry system. The gift registry system allows wedding guests to donate online to the marrying couples charities of choice. The I Do Foundation is a great answer to the question of what you get the couple who has everything and the answer by giving in their name. Along the same idea as traditional gift registries, the I Do Foundation guides the giving choices of your guests by informing them of your charitable giving preferences.
Additional Wedding Planning Assistance
The I DO Foundation also has other ways to assist you in your wedding planning endevours such as offering a free website tool that not only guides wedding attendees to your charities of choice but also gives them logistical information on your wedding such as directions to your ceremony and reception. As if all this wasn’t enough, the I Do Foundation also offers green wedding tips for the eco-friendly bride and groom. As many of our readers know environmental issues are near and dear to Sir Austins heart. The I Do Foundation gives such advice to the eco friendly couple as how to find organic flower distributors and how to pick the perfect eco-friendly wedding destinations. With these kind of credentials it’s no wonder why the I Do Foundation gets two coat hangers up from Sir Austin and the Austin Cleaners crew!
Every year the dry cleaning industry hosts a major trade show creatively titled “the clean show”. However cleaver the name the show always brings out the heavy hitters of the industry showcasing what is hot right now in the world of dry cleaning clothes. Over the last couple of years I started to notice a trend that has been developing year after year at the clean show .
