Perc is the most widely used solvent in dry cleaning in Toronto, with nearly 30 tonnes used at local shops per year. It's been used for ages, but it also sticks around for ages - creating hazardous waste, polluting soil, contaminating water, poisoning fish and posing serious health risks to all the people who handle it.
TEA's Coming Clean & Going Green project, set to launch in Spring 2015, aims to move Toronto's dry cleaning sector away from this toxic cleaning solvent. Stay tuned for more details!
What you can do:
- Read more about Dry Cleaning
- Use the City of Toronto's ChemTRAC tool to locate dry cleaning shops that use 'Tetrachloroethylene', the scientific name for perc.