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Mori Mickelson was breastfeeding her 11-month-old son in the bedroom of her New York apartment when she began to get a headache, dizziness, burning in her lungs, and a feeling of losing consciousness.
She smelled a familiar sweet chemical odor coming through her bedroom window from the dry cleaner located in her building directly below. The smell was perc, or perchloroethylene, a toxic solvent used by most dry cleaners.
Originally developed as a degreaser for metals, perc has been classified as a hazardous air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. A study by Consumers Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes Consumer Reports, found that levels of perc in apartments above New York City dry cleaners pose "clear hazards to the residents’ health."
It’s far from just a New York City problem. Greenpeace reports that an estimated one million-plus people in the U.S. are at risk due to elevated levels of perc in their homes. The reason: Scientists have linked perc to nervous system, kidney, liver and reproductive disorders in lab animals, and higher risk of cancer among dry-cleaning workers.
Just after Mori Mickelson learned she was pregnant in January 1996, the New York State Department of Health began a pilot study to determine perc levels in residents living above dry cleaners. Researchers found perc in Mori’s blood, urine and breast tissue. After she gave birth, they found perc in her breastmilk. Dr. Judith S. Schreiber, a researcher with the New York State Department of Health, predicts cancer risks of 1 in 5,000 for infants breastfed by women who live in buildings that also house dry cleaners. Though the city stopped dry cleaning operations in the building, perc remained on the premises. The fumes that forced Mori out of her home in August 1997 resulted from an accidental spill of more than a gallon of perc left inside one machine.
Even bringing dry-cleaned clothes home is risky. EPA studies have found that people who reported visiting a dry-cleaning shop showed twice as much perc in their breath, on average, as other people. The effective half-life (the time required to eliminate half the quantity) of perc in the breath is about 21 hours. EPA also found that levels of perc remained elevated in a home for as long as one week after placing newly dry-cleaned clothes in a closet. And another Consumers Union study found that people who wear freshly dry-cleaned clothes, like a jacket and shirt, every week over a 40-year period, could inhale enough perc "to measurably increase their risk of cancer" – by as much as 150 times what is considered "negligible risk."
Dry cleaners throw all clothing – regardless of fabric type or construction – into a machine containing gallons of perc, which removes fat, grease and oil without shrinking fabric or causing dyes to bleed. The dirt is dumped as hazardous waste, and the perc vapor is supposed to be captured and recycled. But cleaners using these machines still release perc fumes into the air, according to Consumers Union, possibly due to faulty equipment and/or noncompliance with regulations.
In their book Toxic Deception, Dan Fagin and Marianne Lavelle document EPA’s "paralysis on this long-recognized hazard," noting that EPA officials, well-aware of the evidence against perc, worried "that action to curb perc ... could have a devastating effect on the dry-cleaning industry." In fact, according to the authors, EPA has delayed making public its own risk assessment of perc for several years due to industry pressure.
Even after perc is phased out at a site, the chemical can linger. In October 1997, following intense community pressure, a school located in a former dry cleaning plant in Harlem closed indefinitely, after tests found perc levels above state guidelines, despite venting. Perc had saturated the soil 20 feet below the double concrete floor.
Until the mid-1980s, it wasn’t illegal for dry cleaners to simply pour spent perc down the drain. As a result, perc has soaked into soil through sewer system leaks and is now a major groundwater contaminant in more than one-quarter of U.S. water supplies.
Happily, safer alternatives exist.
