French Laundry, a “green” dry cleaner

Lori Anne Gaddy puts the finishing touches on a garment bag of shirts. She and Nora Hunter recently opened French Laundry in Peach Tree Plaza next to Blockbuster Video. Formerly Downtown Alterations, the new shop now offers green dry cleaning in addition to their alteration services.

While running Downtown Alterations, Lori Anne Gaddy often listened to customers complaining about the effects of having their clothes dry cleaned by shops that use a solvent known as perc.

The press machine, Lightning Unipress Shirt Buck, air dries a shirt from the inside out, leaving it crisp and clean. French Laundry cleans nearly 75 white shirts a day.

The vast majority of dry cleaning shops in the United States use perchloroethylene, a hazardous air pollutant linked to cancer and neurological damage. The Environmental Protection Agency indicated last month that it will reconsider whether to compel dry cleaners to phase out perc, an action already taken by the state of California.

French Laundry owner Nora Hunter, hangs a marching band uniform that she specially formulated a cleaning solvent for to ensure that the red fabric wouldn’t bleed. Hunter said business has picked up every month they’ve been in operation. “I knew we’d be busy from the beginning because it’s green and the way we deal with customers and the attention we give to each garment has kept us really busy,” Hunter said. “We’re busier than either of us anticipated, and we get busier every day.”

Downtown Alterations had been outsourcing its dry cleaning services to a shop that used perc.

“I always knew I wanted to do green cleaning to get away from the bad smell of perc,” Gaddy said. “Coming from a tailoring background I could see what the harsh chemicals were doing. Perc would dry out cashmeres and not maintain the integrity of the fabric.”

Hristina Jeliazkova works on sewing a garment at French Laundry. The new dry cleaning shop offers alterations in addition to full-service green dry cleaning.

Lyusya Rozenblat irons a pair of pants in the sewing shop of French Laundry.

In January, Gaddy and Nora Hunter opened French Laundry, which markets itself as the only certified GreenEarth cleaner in Columbia and still does alterations. The shop, located at 3910 Peachtree Dr. between Hemingway’s and Blockbuster, doesn’t use perc and instead cleans clothing with liquid silicone, a solution made from silica, or sand. The process of cleaning is so safe that Gaddy, who is five-months pregnant, said she feels comfortable working in and around the solvent.

As Linwood Burgess spot cleans a green formal dress, he inhales the sweet smell of a citrus cleaning solution he now uses to get stains out. Burgess, who has been in the dry cleaning business for more than 25 years, said he would get headaches, rashes and dizziness from working around the toxic chemical perc at his other dry cleaning jobs. “The chemicals were so strong in the old days that I have a lot of friends that worked in the business and now have cancer,” Burgess said. (Between 1996 and 2006, dry cleaners reduced emissions of perc by nearly two-thirds by replacing older machines and improving their eficiency, according to EPA data cited in a recent article in The Washington Post.)

“I have a dermatologist who is sending patients to us because our methods are non-toxic and hypoallergenic,” Gaddy said. “If you have a choice between something carcinogenic or not, I don’t know why you wouldn’t choose something healthier for you and your clothes.”

French Laundry owner Lori Anne Gaddy quickly tailors a pair of pants for her customer, Brenda Gibbs.