C02 drycleaning

Environmental etiquette

1 August 2006



Etiquette Formal Hire is the only UK drycleaner using liquid carbon dioxide. Roger Cawood reports from the business HQ in Rossendale, Lancashire


The first liquid carbon dioxide drycleaning machine in the UK was imported from Italy in 1999. It was only used on an experimental basis and was not a success.

Machine technology has advanced considerably and Etiquette Formal Hire began looking into the method in 2001. It now has eight machines all designed and manufactured by Cool-Clean Technologies, Burnville USA.

The business was founded as a tailoring establishment in 1960, and was originally based in Ramsbottom. Later Peter Novak, the founder’s son, came up with the idea of developing a hire business for formal wear.

Having expanded considerably, Etiquette moved to its current location, a former shoe factory with an area of 135,000ft2 in Waterfoot, Rossendale in 1999 and now claims to be the largest distributor of formal hire garments in Europe.

It covers the whole of the UK and the Republic of Ireland and has a nationwide distribution network, serving over 2,000 outlets.

During spring and summer it handles around 1,000,000 garments per month, mostly men’s evening and wedding suits and shirts, but also including around 600 wedding gowns a month. It also has a retail drycleaning side.

When Peter Novak started the formal hire operation, the garments were cleaned in perc, but a hydrocarbon machine was introduced when this solvent came onto the market.

The business now runs two perc machines plus a hydrocarbon machine, all by AMA, plus the eight CO2 machines. Perc and hydrocarbon are used for cleaning heavily-soiled or stained clothes and garments that may not be suitable for cleaning in CO2.

While both these solvents have always provided good standards of cleaning and stain removal, Novak was keen to extend the hire life of garments, particularly of jackets. He was also anxious to reduce health and safety risks related to working with drycleaning solvents and to introduce environmentally friendly cleaning systems.

In 2001, therefore, he began to look into liquid carbon dioxide technology. The following year Etiquette installed three 20kg machines from Cool-Clean Technologies, and the company has since installed a further five, also of 20kg capacity.

While there were some initial problems, mainly associated with the cartridges used in the filtration system, it is understood that these have now been resolved.

Cleaning power

Liquid CO2 is delivered to Etiquette in bulk by Cryoservice, the specialist gas supply company, and is stored in an 11ton capacity cylinder outside the factory building.

Liquid carbon dioxide requires a pressure of around 700psi to maintain its liquid form. In the machines, this can rise to around 900psi, so they must be highly engineered and extremely robust to withstand this internal pressure .

Liquid CO2 has a much lower cleaning power than perc, and Etiquette has found its power similar to that of hydrocarbon.

Suitable detergents and pre-spotting products are still being researched and this is reflected in a need for a lot more “hands on” stain removal, particularly compared to perc, but also, to a lesser extent, compared to hydrocarbon.

Development work with detergents is on going but Etiquette uses products supplied by Kreussler, Uniqema, and Cole & Wilson.

Earlier this year I visited Etiquette to conduct two, 2 day stain removal courses – one at advanced level – to help the company develop its expertise here. Post cleaning stain removal is carried out on seven spotting tables each equipped with steam, air, vacuum and high pressure water sprays. Staff use both pure spotting chemicals and a variety of kit products.

The business has found that the soil removal ability of CO2 is more than adequate for formal hire garments and drycleaning manager Peter Allen says that cleaning with this solvent has increased the life of hire stock by an average 20% – a big advantage for Etiquette.

The company attributes the increased hire life to the fact that CO2 cleaning uses a cold drying procedure and to its lower solvency power. As CO2 is a gas at normal atmospheric pressure, when the pressure in the cage is lowered at the end of the wash cycle, the solvent remaining in the garments evaporates without the need for heat. In fact garment temperatures can approach freezing during the dry cycle.

Dry-to-dry cycle times are similar to modern perc machines at 40 – 45 minutes. Drying without heat helps to reduce creasing and is thought to reduce the incidence of fusible interlining problems such as the separation of the bond leading to blistering and bubbling on the face of the fabric.

The method also leads to a reduction in the removal of surface fibres, compared to cleaning in perc and hydrocarbon. This is evident from the significant and noticeable reduction in lint collected on the CO2 machines’ lint screens says Peter Allen.

A further benefit of CO2 cleaning is that clothes come out the machines with a pleasant fresh odour and Allen says that the solvent also has good deodourising properties.

Liquid CO2 has a negative environmental impact and, in itself, does not require registration under the terms of the Solvent Emissions Directive. But a serious vapour escape could be dangerous and Etiquette has installed a monitoring system in the production area to warn staff in the event of any serious CO2 vapour leaks.

Formal wear finishing

The Waterfoot factory consists of several large buildings linked together and finished garments are moved around the factory by conveyor.

At present, the formal hire market caters almost exclusively for men and the garments are very much standardised. This means that the finishing process for jackets and trousers can be automated to an extent that is not possible in a normal retail drycleaning business.

Trousers are finished on double-leg Macpi automatic presses. These presses operate in a similar way to the double-buck laundry press. However, in Etiquette’s automated operation the trousers are automatically removed from the back of press and transferred to hang on a low level conveyor that transports them to the trouser toppers.

Jackets are finished using specialised presses for the lapels, back and shoulder areas and the fronts. New jacket finishing equipment is now being installed to further improve production rates and reduce labour costs.

For the most part the finishing equipment used for formal hire work is unsuitable for finishing the wide range of garment and fabric types handled in retail dry cleaning.

High standards

Etiquette works to extremely high standards in terms of cleaning, stain removal and finishing. Even the slightest imperfection is likely to result in a formal hire garment being rejected and scrapped if the fault cannot be corrected.

Garments are carefully inspected throughout production to ensure that quality standards are consistently maintained.

Consistent production rates are obviously critical in a business producing around 250,000 items a week. All garments are barcoded to allow accurate monitoring of production rates and to control stock at all levels throughout the factory.

Each member of the production staff has a target for a particular task such as stain removal or trouser pressing and is equipped with a bar code reader connected to a PDA which transmits production information to a central computer.

Retail business

Etiquette has provided a retail drycleaning service for the local Rossendale area for many years.

In January of this year, it started a nationwide business to offer other retail drycleaners and receiving shops a realistically priced, environmentally friendly drycleaning service.

All the items will be drycleaned in the CO2 machine, but this retail work will be finished on ironing machines, while formal hire garments are transferred to the specialist equipment.

As environmental matters are thought to be of increasing concern to the public, Etiquette feels its new service will be of interest to many cleaners throughout the country.

It has now established several contracts and these are supported by its nationwide distribution network. The service is continuing to grow and Etiquette believes that in the medium term it will make a substantial contribution to the turnover.

Planning the future

The company still sees men’s formal hire as a growth market and has recently invested heavily in “state of the art” finishing systems. This kind of investment will continue. In the near future the company plans to expand its range of formal wear services to include Highland wear and kilts and plans to introduce a ladies’ formal wear hire service.

Liquid carbon dioxide machines are very much cutting edge technology in the field of drycleaning. While CO2 works for Etiquette, at present, the high capital cost of the equipment, the need for further refinement and development of effective machine detergents and pre-spotting products mean that CO2 machines are a long way from being a viable proposition for the retail drycleaning market in general, particularly as well developed and cheaper alternatives to perc are readily available.

However, concerns over global warming and the environment continue to escalate and in the much longer term pressure on the current mainstream drycleaning solvents could increase.


_trouser_pressing at Etiquette Formal Hire ( Aug 2006 issue) _trouser_pressing at Etiquette Formal Hire ( Aug 2006 issue)
Etiquette Formal Hire Rossendale Lancs ( C02 cleaning feature Aug 06) Etiquette Formal Hire Rossendale Lancs ( C02 cleaning feature Aug 06)
CO2_machine at Etiquette Formal Hire Rossendale ( Aug 06 issue) CO2_machine at Etiquette Formal Hire Rossendale ( Aug 06 issue)
BULK_CO2 storage at Etiquette formal hire BULK_CO2 storage at Etiquette formal hire
_Peter_Allen_drycleaning manager, Etiquette Formal hire (Aug 06) _Peter_Allen_drycleaning manager, Etiquette Formal hire (Aug 06)
THE_POST spotting area at Etiquette formal Hire ( Aug 06 issue THE_POST spotting area at Etiquette formal Hire ( Aug 06 issue


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