February 11, 2013 In Dry Cleaning Tips

Drycleaners; Launderers Laud Monopoly Piece Change

In a move that shocked half the planet this month Hasbro announced they would be replacing the iron game piece in their popular Monopoly game. “Replacing the iron is exactly what drycleaning and laundry professionals do,” said Mary Scalco. Scalco is CEO of the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute, a trade association for professional drycleaners and launderers.


“No one likes irons or ironing. We were overjoyed to learn there would soon be one less iron in millions of homes around the world, even if it is a miniature replica game piece,” Scalco said. “Way to go, Hasbro!”

In today’s world, people want to look good but they don’t want to have to iron their clothes to do it. Drycleaning and Laundry professionals help eliminate the need to do tedious ironing. Readers may identify a professional drycleaning or laundry service in their area at www.DLIonline.org.

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June 9, 2012 In "Geeky" Stain Tips, Dry Cleaning Tips

Production Spotlight: Clothes Barcoding

St Croix | White Way Cleaners does a lot of dry cleaning; 19 stores worth to be exact. With the amount of drycleaning and laundry we do, you may wonder how we keep track of it all.

Some cleaners use permanent marker to write a customer’s name on their clothes; others use less invasive systems like temporary plastic tags or wash resistant paper. While these options “work” they are not ideal, and can easily lead to lost garments, especially when dealing with high volumes.

At St Croix | White Way we’ve gotten keeping track of garments down to a science. Using a sophisticated barcoding system we’re able to keep track of your items no matter where they are in the process.

Barcodes like this one identify store information about your garment in our computer.

The first time you bring in a new garment, a barcode is added to that item. This barcode is then associated with your account and preferences, so that anytime you bring the item in we can instantly see who it belongs too. We can also see your cleaning preferences, such as starch levels or boxes vs. hangers for your dress shirts. It also identifies the garment by color, pattern, fabric and brand label so that we can easily identify which of your garments we have and where they are in our process at any time.

Garments move through many stages to restore them to their optimum condition.  Each step of the way we read the barcode and record data about who, how and when it was processed.  All of this information is available to us in our computer system.  Once your garment is cleaned, pressed and inspected, it is sent to our automatic assembly system.   There an employee scans your item’s barcode and places it on a hanging conveyor system attached to the bagging machine.

The computer system is smart enough to read the barcode and group it with your other garments, being careful to never put more than 4 garments inside an order. Once four of your items are on the assembly system, the computer system offloads the garments together with a printed ticket and advances them to the automatic bagger, all without human intervention!!! The bagger then pulls a custom, biodegradable plastic bag over the clothes, careful not to waste any extra plastic.

The barcoding system is extremely useful. It lets us know all the details of your garments very quickly; how many times we have cleaned a garment, who pressed it, who marked it in and where it is stored can all be figured out with one quick scan.   There have been many times where we’ve noticed a customer dropped a garment in our parking lot on the way to or home from one of our stores.   We give the garment a quick scan and know everything about the garment in an instant. Without our barcode we’d never know whose garment it was, much less who to contact!

Keep watching our blog for more Production Spotlights!

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April 26, 2012 In "Geeky" Stain Tips, Dry Cleaning Tips, Green Cleaning

What is "Green Dry Cleaning"?

“Earth Friendly.”  “Non-Toxic.”  “Environmentally Friendly.”  “100% Toxin Free.”

Not exactly the words that come to mind when you think about Dry Cleaning.  So what really is the meaning of ‘green’ dry cleaning, and what does it mean to you, the consumer, when a dry cleaner claims they are ‘green’?

First of all, we should probably explain what Dry Cleaning itself really is.  It isn’t actually the act of cleaning your clothes when they are dry.  They still are saturated and become ‘wet,’  just not from water.  For over 100 years, Dry Cleaners have primarily used a chemical called perchloroethylene, also known as “Perc”, as the solvent in the dry cleaning process.  This is a harsh chemical which cleans your clothes very well, but with each wash can fade the colors and roughen the fabrics  Perc is also responsible for the chemical smell most people associate with Dry Cleaners.

But besides just bad smells, Perc is also considered a hazardous chemical and some researchers have declared it to be a carcinogen. It is taxed by the government to use, and must be disposed of properly.  Every dry cleaner in the nation must pay into a drycleaners’ “superfund” for hazardous waste cleanups (even if the dry cleaner doesn’t use Perc!).  If there is a spill in a dry cleaning facility, it can be very expensive to clean up.

In the past few years, new technologies have emerged allowing Dry Cleaners to try different solvents for cleaning garments, most with the focus of being more environmentally friendly.

Since building our new plant in 2007, St Croix | White Way Cleaners uses a Hydrocarbon solvent, which, along with being odorless,  biodegrades within days of being exposed to air, water or earth. Oh, and it cleans pretty well too! (Just look at our five straight Seal of Approval wins from the DryCleaning and Laundry Institute!)

Other benefits include:

Softer Feeling Clothes

Extended Garment Life

Virtually Odorless

No Color Loss

Safe on Delicate Fabrics, beads, sequins and other embellishments

We have also invested in another new technology called “Wet Cleaning”.  These machines use water but, unlike “washing machines”, wet cleaning machines infuse detergents, softeners and other cleaning agents via different computer programs to efficiently & effectively clean many garments that previously could only be “dry cleaned”.

St Croix |White Way Cleaners is committed to being an environmentally friendly Dry Cleaner. We are no longer considered a hazardous waste producer by the MN EPA.  Not only do we use non-toxic solvents and recycle hangers, but we were the first in the Midwest to implement the use of bio-degradable plastic bags. These bags are kinder to the environment, and will help preserve our future.

We also use a state of the art water circulation system, effectively recycling and reusing the water supply in our dry cleaning plant.  Since installing this system, we have reduced the amount of water used in our plant by over 35%! It effectively makes our environmental footprint even smaller.

While other Dry Cleaners may say they are “green,” (isn’t everyone, these days?)  Most are still using unnatural solvents to clean your garments.  Though Perc is still being used in the majority of dry cleaners, it is commendable that many dry cleaners are working as hard as possible to use more earth friendly technologies and solvents.  If you want the best of both worlds right now, green cleaning is the clear choice and St Croix | White Way Cleaners is proud to be one of the leaders in the movement.

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