Mary Scalco, CEO of the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI), joined other representatives of the drycleaning, wetcleaning, and manufacturing industries in the Federal Trade Commission’s roundtable discussion about this year’s proposed changes to the Care Labelling Rule, which was held in March.
A key focus was the proposal to include a wetcleaning instruction on the label and the panel discussed the merits of making this a requirement, which DLI opposes although it is in favour of allowing the instruction to appear.
Scalco also argued that using both ASTM and ISO care symbols would confuse consumers.
The panel discussed clarifying the Care Label rule’s reasonable basis requirement and here Scalco said that DLI supports testing the idea of testing the whole garment before attaching care label instructions.
The panel was also critical of the FTC’s lengthy process for updating the Care Labelling Rule, saying it was too slow in reflecting industry innovations and practices.
Summing up DLI’s views on the proposed revisions, Scalco said that "DLI appreciated the FTC ‘s proposal to update the Care Label Rule to allow for the use of new, alternative cleaning processes. DLI has always held that the reasonable basis requirements for the care label needed to be strengthened to ensure that the label recommended the correct method so that cleaning did not damage the garment.
CARE LABEL REVISIONS: DLI CEO Mary Scalco debated pros and cons of potential changes to the Federal Trade Commission’s Care Label Rule at an FTC Round Table Discussion