8.1. SR 09-17-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Patrick B. Steinhoff From: Matthew A. Anderson Sent: Friday, August 24, 2012 12:19 PM To: Patrick B. Steinhoff Cc: Mark Leadens; mark leadens Subject: StarTribune article, picked up from Washington Post StarTiribune Science project is taken to the cleaners • Article by: LENA H. SUN • Washington Post • September 3, 2011 -6:29 PM WASHINGTON - Like many memorable science fair projects, it began with a simple idea: Find out what chemicals remain in dry- cleaned clothing. But the problem facing Alexa Dantzler, 15,was that she didn't have access to the proper equipment. So, the sophomore at Bishop O'Connell High School in Arlington, Va., went online. She e-mailed three or four chemistry professors across the country asking for help. Only Paul Roepe, then chairman of Georgetown University's chemistry department, seemed intrigued. He took on the research "for fun." But what started out as something so simple prompted a chain reaction in the university lab: an e-mail exchange, an invitation to collaborate and, last week, a paper published online in a peer-reviewed environmental journal. The paper gives new details about the amount of a toxic chemical that lingers in wool, cotton and polyester clothing after it is dry-cleaned. "At the end of the day, nobody, I mean nobody, has previously done this simple thing--gone out there to several different dry cleaners and tested different types of cloth"to see how much of the chemical persists, said Roepe, who supervised the study. Dantzler, with help from her mother, sewed squares of wool, cotton, polyester and silk into the lining of seven identical men's jackets, then took them to be cleaned from one to six times at seven Northern Virginia cleaners, which had no prior knowledge of the experiment. She kept the patches in plastic bags in the freezer and went to Georgetown once or twice a week to do the chemical analysis with two grad students. The research team found that perch loroethylene, a dry cleaning solvent that has been linked to cancer and neurological damage, stayed in the fabrics and that levels increased with repeat cleaning, particularly in wool. The study was published online Tuesday in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Between 65 percent and 70 percent of the country's estimated 25,000 dry cleaning facilities use the solvent, known as PCE or perc, industry representatives said. Government regulations and voluntary industry guidelines exist for atmospheric concentrations in the workplace, and there has been a long-running fight between environmentalists and the federal government over how quickly the chemical should be phased out for dry cleaners. 1