John Chung outside his wet cleaning facility, Robbinsville Cleaners.
By Carly Szabo
Dry cleaning is a great convenience for many Americans, but that convenience can come with a price.
Due to the chemicals used in typical dry cleaning, clothes often come home smelling of cleaning materials rather than just smelling fresh. Additionally, some studies suggest the toxins used in dry cleaning are bad for one’s health and for the environment. According to the Twelfth Report on Carcinogens, perchloroethylene, a chemical used in dry cleaning, is listed as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” But what alternative is there for clothes that need a good cleaning?
John Chung of Robbinsville Cleaners originally thought there was no alternative either. After emigrating to America from Seoul, South Korea 26 years ago, Chung opened his first dry cleaning business in Sayreville after attending dry cleaning school in Manhattan for two months. Chung, 58, moved to America to meet his wife, Kim. He opened his first dry cleaners right away and while business was decent, Chung realized that his customers couldn’t wear their clothes right after picking them up from the dry cleaners.
“Customers would keep their clothes outside for a couple of hours because of the smell,” Chung said.
Chung also was bothered by this aspect of dry cleaning, being exposed to the boiling chemicals on a regular basis.
In 2007, however, Chung decided to change things up by getting certified for wet cleaning, a water-based form of dry cleaning. A fairly new technology to America, wet cleaning has been used for over two decades in parts of Europe and East Asia. Wet cleaning was developed in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1991, and traveled to America with Chung, one of the first to use the technology in the country. He attended a two-week class in Maryland at the International Fabric Institute to learn the new technique.
With the wet cleaning technology used at Robbinsville Cleaners, Chung says his business will deliver fresh, clean clothes every time without leaving the chemical smell that dry cleaning does. He said this form of cleaning is more efficient and environmentally friendly.
While dry cleaning uses chemicals, wet cleaning uses alkaline soap, which means that the soap is neither basic or acidic in nature. Rather, this soap is natural and deeply cleanses the clothes without damaging or fading them. After the soap is applied, the clothes are conditioned and detexturized to leave them soft and clean. The clothes are then hang-dried and tumbled for approximately five minutes before being pressed and ironed.
Wet cleaning, or “green cleaning,” is different from laundry because laundry utilizes a more aggressive cleaning technique than wet cleaning does. Where laundry tumbles clothes to get stains out, wet cleaning gently shakes them.
Rather than the machine tumbling the clothes to get them clean, the water pressure circulates the clothes instead for a more natural process. The clothes are submerged as they are in laundry, however, they are not dripping wet when they surface from the water.
When Chung first brought wet cleaning to his Quakerbridge Road location in 2007, many customers shied away from the new technology as they misunderstood it to be the equivalent of laundering clothes.
“Customers would say, ‘Oh, you don’t dry clean?’ And then just leave,” Chung said.
Many customers did not know that dry clean only clothes could be wet cleaned as well. However, with patience and a few personal tours of the shop, Chung was able to convince his customers that wet cleaning was the way to go, leaving many to never turn back to their dry cleaning ways.
But do the benefits of wet cleaning come with a price? No, Chung said, at least not in his shop. While the process of wet cleaning is more time consuming and costly for Chung personally, he keeps the prices almost the same for the customer, with wet cleaning only slightly more expensive than dry cleaning. Chung no longer offers dry cleaning at any of his locations since the change in technology in 2007.
Chung is one of just 47 wet cleaners in the country. The small group of wet cleaners meet up with one another to discuss breakthroughs in wet cleaning technology and new techniques that have been developed. As newer products and techniques surface and the wet cleaning industry grows, Chung grows with it, making his wet cleaning shop a fresh and innovative change from the dry cleaning norm.
Or, in the words of Robbinsville Cleaners’ tagline, “If it isn’t green, it isn’t clean.”
Robbinsville Cleaners is located at 2346 Route 33 West in Robbinsville’s Town Center. Phone: (609) 208-2588. Web: wetcleanus.com.
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