Information Central

KANSAS CITY, MO — GreenEarth Cleaning has announced that it has teamed with Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble to unveil a detergent formula that will boost the cleaning power of GreenEarth Cleaning’s patented drycleaning solution.

The improved detergent will be licensed to and manufactured by detergent makers already known in the drycleaning industry. When the detergent is ready for distribution through those normal industry channels, GreenEarth Cleaning expects to launch a nationwide expansion to bring its drycleaning solution to more consumers.

Jim Barry, chairman of GreenEarth Cleaning, said that his company had conducted research over the past two years to determine how its silicone-based drycleaning solution performed in real-world drycleaning operations. Detergency was an area identified as needing improvement. Barry said the company wanted to find a detergent that would meet drycleaners’ needs while maintaining the solution’s environmental benefits. Procter & Gamble emerged as one of the companies with the expertise to develop such a detergent.

P&G entered into a joint venture with GreenEarth Cleaning and GE Silicones, manufacturer of the GreenEarth Cleaning solvent. The venture, which is called GreenEarth Solutions, was formed in late 1999 by GreenEarth Cleaning and GE Silicones.

P&G’s Global Licensing and External Business Development Unit is charged with ensuring the company maximizes the value of its “treasure trove” of technologies by selling, licensing and, in some cases, donating these technologies. The unit is also responsible for licensing select P&G brand trademarks.

GreenEarth Cleaning was created in 1998 by several drycleaners who were looking for an alternative to perchloroethylene due to increasing regulatory pressure on the industry’s most widely used solvent.

FREDERICKSBURG, VA — Kaeser Compressors now offers its Sigma Screw Compressors with the new Sigma Frequency Control (SFC). This variable speed drive device was designed to achieve maximum efficiency over a wide flow. Standard SFC compressor packages are available from 100 to 215 HP and flows from 130 to 1001

cfm, providing pressures from 80 to 145 psig. The direct drive airend/motor packages is designed for efficiency over its entire speed range of 10 to 100 percent. The company said it can be run fully loaded indefinitely if the application requires it. SFC compressor packages feature sound dampening enclosure, EPAct compliant motors and a built-in Eco-Drain for condensate removal.

COLD SPRING, KY — The Stamford Chemical division of Fabritec International has developed charts to keeping the proper concentration of detergent and sizing for

drycleaning plants that use the charge process. Two types of charts are available — one for liquid detergent and/or sizing and a separate chart for beaded sizing. The charts eliminated the need for test kits. They are glue-backed and can be displayed in a convenient area in the cleaning room.

TULSA, OK — Royaltone’s Leather Fix is a new, environmentally friendly leather dye fixer for wetcleaning suede, leather and cloth combinations in any laundry washer.

Leather Fix wetcleaning leather prewash dye fixer is used in the prewash cycle as an auxiliary treatment to provide suede and leather items with color stability and to loosen surface soil and stains. It is added to a three-minute prewash cycle to set dyes before the main wash cycle when wetcleaning suedes, leathers and cloth combination items.

MIDLAND, MI — The Dow Chemical Co. has begun publishing a Latin American counterpart to its Spot News under the Spanish title Pasando A Limpio and in Portuguese as Dry-Cleaning News. The quarterly publications are being distributed initially in Argentina, Brazil and Chile.

Like Spot News, the Latin American publications are geared to help drycleaners use perc safely and responsibly and to help them meet and exceed local legislative standards while providing a clean, healthy atmosphere for employees and customers. Dow said the endeavor emphasizes the importance of the Latin American market and the growing presence of Dow as a supplier to a variety of Latin American industries, including drycleaning.

To date, newsletter articles have covered the relationship between the Montreal Protocol and perc, qualities required in an ideal drycleaning solvent, methods of controlling solvent vapors and a comparison of perc with petroleum solvents.

SAN ANTONIO, TX — Petrol Dry Limited has introduced its Petrol Vacuum still to complete its line of petroleum machines. The Petrol Vacuum Still uses a reliable vacuum pump and provides fast recovery.