When Washing Rags Creates Toxic Emissions

The shop towels used by mechanics to mop up spilled oil can release toxic chemicals into the air when laundered. (Reed Saxon/AP)

If you think your laundry is dirty, consider the many shops and garages that use shop towels – absorbent, reusable cloths for wiping oil, solvents and chemicals off machines.

The shop towels are eventually carted off to industrial laundries, which clean them. In that process, toxic chemicals – including carcinogens – are released, and could be inhaled.

Environmental regulators in Connecticut found emissions from these volatile organic compounds (VOCs) so bad at one laundry, they stopped the facility from cleaning them.

Science journalist Barbara Moran, who wrote about the issue for the Connecticut Health I-Team, told Here & Now that environmental regulators admitted to her they had missed this problem.

“It’s kind of flown under the radar,” Moran said. “Even when I first heard about this story, I was like, ‘wait air emissions?’ I don’t even understand how this could be happening because laundries, when they’re targeted, are usually targeted for water discharge, water emission issues.”

The environmental consulting firm Gradient has conducted research on shop towels, and found they can also put workers at risk, since they still contain metals such as lead, even after laundering.

Gradient (white paper, 2011): Evaluation of Potential Exposure to Metals in Laundered Shop Towels

Graphic created by Kimberly-Clark Professional.

Guest:

Barbara Moran, health and science journalist who writes for the Connecticut Health I-Team.

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

How does this balance with the environmental costs of manufacturing and disposing of rags?
Shaun_mcauliffe

Approximately one decade ago one of the industrial cleaning units at Coyne’s New Bedford facility exploded and ended up in the adjacent river. The attendant survived.

As a recovering environmental consultant, these businesses were always considered a high environmental and financial risk.
Johnold

I work for a corporation that makes machines
specifically to handle shop rags. The machine is designed using explosion proof
equipment. The machine vaporizes all the solvents with steam and distills them
to a liquid, which can then be recycled. If the process is run correctly there
should be no residual smell on the rags which means all the solvents have correctly
been vaporized. It should be noted that different solvents vaporize at different
temperatures. Finally the rags are washed and extracted. The problem is that we
have no control on where the machines are placed and how they are used. The
laundry personnel are instructed on how to properly use the machines properly when
they are installed. I think short cuts are taken to increase production and so
not using the machines as they were intended. Another problem is that some of
the Laundries customers use the rags to soak up unwanted solvents so making the
problem worse. OSHA or the EPA should monitor these machines like
they do with water discharges to see that they are running in compliance with
the regulations.