PHILADEPHIA — Nearly 100 people including officials from the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI) attended a public hearing last month in Philadelphia to address concerns surrounding a proposed regulation seeking to ban perchloroethylene use in co-commercial drycleaning facilities and impose stricter controls and recordkeeping requirements on perc operations.
Environmentalists in attendance offered support for the regulation (known as the Air Management Regulation X14/Control of Perchloroethylene from Dry Cleaning Facilities). Most comments came from the local drycleaning community, however, which expressed concern that the cost of compliance would bankrupt them or drive them to locations outside the city limits.
One local cleaner called the proposed regulation an unfunded mandate, asking why the city’s Air Management Board would require drycleaners to comply with such a difficult and expensive regulation without offering any kind of financial assistance.
Industry officials addressed the proposed regulation’s onerous maintenance and recordkeeping requirements. “Drycleaners are already obligated to keep the vast majority of the records that are being required in the new regulations,” said DLI’s Jon Meijer. “This creates regulatory duplication, additional paperwork burdens and just general havoc for the drycleaner.”
Industry representatives for n-Propyl Bromide (nPB) also appeared to challenge a ban on its use in drycleaning.
Philadelphia’s Air Management Board is reviewing comments and will soon decide whether to proceed with the regulation as it was finalized in July, make changes or scrap it altogether.
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