Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Note on the dry cleaners.

If you have clothes that have to be dry cleaned, join the club, here are some helpful hints:
1) Always return your hangers, they can be reused over and over again. Plus it feels good to return them and the dry cleaner is very appreciative.
2) Ask the dry cleaner not to put that plastic slipcover over your clothes.
Okay my dry cleaner won’t do this and we are on a first name basis. Hey, remember me, I'm the one you like for retuning the hangers? No?
Well, I got the same ‘dust argument' from my dry cleaner that Kerry encountered when getting her clothes laundered. Why do professional cleaners like to swaddle clothes in plastic wrap? I swear, I don't live in a vacuum. There is dust out there in the world where I wear my clothes! It doesn't bother me. Dust is in fact the least of my worries. Really it is food stains that brings me a knocking at your door, not dust stains. Isn't dust really good for business in the long run dry cleaner lady? These are all losing arguments; apparently plastic slipcovers are a wasteful must. What I have done to combat this is, I take the plastic wrap off my clothes (very gently-careful not to rip) when I pick up my perfectly-dust-free dry cleaned clothes. Right there and then, I take that plastic off. I give it back to the lady; ask her to reuse it, she always agrees. As long as "it isn't wrinkled" she'll reuse it. Then I turn and walk away with my fingers crossed and blissfully innocents to what happens next knowing I have tried my best. That and I am trying to dry clean less.

2 comments:

plasticfreenyc said...

ooh thanks for posting. i dropped off some pants the other day. wasn't sure what to do. i'll just leave the plastic with amy. and i always return my hangers to happy cleaners!

we have some organic dry cleaners in nyc (like www.greenapplecleaners.com) .. none close to where i live. but i wonder if they still use lots of plastic..

Rasbi said...

I know you don't want ANY new plastic, but if the cleaner insists, you can at least use the plastic bag as a waste basket liner (tie a knot in the top where the hanger would poke through).