LAUREL, Md. — Shirt laundry is an important aspect of dry cleaning. The Drycleaning & Laundry Institute (DLI) recently updated its Laundry Performance Evaluation (LPE) diagnostic tool to help member dry cleaners improve their shirt cleaning quality.
“DLI is always updating and improving its services to be more useful to its members,” says Mary Scalco, DLI CEO.
Since many laundry operations no longer use chlorine bleaches, DLI indicates, its research department updated the LPE kit with a pink fabric swatch stained with red wine to measure the effectiveness of non-chlorine bleaches, including hydrogen peroxide, sodium perborate, and Peracetic acid.
The evaluation measures a wash formula’s ability to maintain whiteness, minimize fiber damage, and remove soils. It also measures the effectiveness of bleaches in the cleaning system.
Member cleaners, it says, receive evaluation towels containing white and soiled fabric swatches to test their system's effectiveness in several categories.
Cleaners run the test piece in a regular load and return it to the Institute for evaluation. After the Institute receives the processed test piece researchers evaluate how well the system performed and offer suggestions for improving the cleaning quality, it notes.
“This has always been a great, easy to use tool that was long overdue for an update,” Scalco points out. “Now with the new bleach swatch this service will appeal to a greater number of our members.”
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