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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A scientific study released by ARCADIS, an international research firm specializing in environmental issues, found no evidence that laundered reusable shop towels pose any health risk to workers, refuting claims by the disposables industry, according to the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA), which sponsored the study.

The study refutes previously published reports by the disposables industry used to frighten workers who use shop towels to perform their jobs, claiming that residues imbedded in laundered reusable shop towels pose a health risk despite decades of use without any reported issues.

“As the trade association representing facilities that process laundered reusable shop towels, we felt we had an industry responsibility to conduct a health assessment to quantify if any real health risk existed,” says TRSA President/CEO Joseph Ricci, CAE. “This study reconfirms decades of experience, that laundered reusable shop towels are not only safe but are the most efficient, cost-effective and sustainable option.”

The ARCADIS study collected laundered reusable shop towels from 10 different laundering companies and facilities, measuring residue leachability to conduct a quantitative health risk assessment. Towels were incubated in synthetic human sweat to represent the releasable quantity of each residue that could be transferred to workers’ hands from laundered reusable shop towels. Subsequent hand-to-food or hand-to-mouth transfers were modeled with the risk assessment framework used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other authoritative agencies.

The study’s findings indicate that residues including metals in laundered reusable shop towels do not present any health hazard to workers using the towels, with exposure levels typically 100 or more times lower than EPA acceptable levels.

“Reusable cloth shop towels have been used by millions of workers for more than 100 years with no indications that laundered reusable shop towels have any impact on worker health,” says Ricci. “By measuring leachability, ARCADIS simulated a conservative, realistic model of potential transfer of residue that reaffirmed our confidence that there is absolutely no risk to reusable shop towel users.”

Unlike previous studies of reusable shop towels, TRSA retained independent analysis from a renowned industrial hygienist, Dr. Patrick N. Breysse, Johns Hopkins University, who conducted a systematic evaluation of previous studies.

These “estimates of exposure, data and assumptions used a deterministic analysis that cumulatively overestimated worker exposures,” says Breysse, and the ARCADIS study, “while conservative, provides a more refined and realistic health assessment.”

TRSA’s findings indicate there “is little or nothing to be concerned about with the use of clean, laundered shop towels,” Breysse observes, expressing disbelief in the prior overestimates of exposure. For example, the amount of lead exposure from shop towel use previously calculated was equivalent to the quantity faced by workers who manufacture lead batteries. In contrast, the TRSA study put the daily dose of lead from shop towel use at 1,000 to 10,000 times below the acceptable exposure level, “by far a more realistic result.”

“Overall, the assumed conditions of towel use represented by this exposure model are conservative, such that the resulting exposure estimates likely overstate actual exposure,” explains Kevin Connor, Ph.D., principal toxicologist from ARCADIS. These high estimates of the amounts of the 27 chemical elements “were not above regulatory thresholds for judging potential human health hazards.”

TRSA had also conducted a separate burn study of disposable shop towels that revealed that many of the same residues found on laundered reusable shop towels are also present on disposable shop towels.

Copies of the ARCADIS study are available by contacting TRSA’s Ken Koepper, 703-519-0029, ext. 109, or kkoepper@trsa.org.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An initial health risk assessment of laundered reusable shop towels by international environmental engineering firm ARCADIS indicates that using laundered reusable shop towels creates no health hazard, TRSA announced during a press conference Thursday.

The association commissioned the study in response to 2011 Gradient Corp. analysis funded and used by disposable-wiper marketers to fuel speculation about risks associated with clean reusable shop towels.

ARCADIS’ risk assessment indicates that metals remaining on shop towels after laundering are not readily transferred to the hands of workers. TRSA plans to expand the research beyond the initial sample of shop towels from 10 locations to 15 randomly selected sites.

ARCADIS measured metal traces in laundered towels and increased the scope of testing to include leachability tests using “synthetic sweat” to estimate residual elements that could be freed when they are used. The firm determined the amounts of each metal a worker might be exposed to, based on factors including skin contact and hours worked. The potential non-cancer and cancer hazards associated with such exposures were assessed.

The independent research found either zero detectable risk from the transfer of these metals or a level insignificant even when compared to the EPA’s health-conservative values, TRSA says. The ARCADIS research protocol mirrored the Gradient analysis but went significantly further by conducting the leachability tests.

“Reusable cloth shop towels have been used by millions of workers for more than 100 years with no indications that clean shop towels have any impact on worker health,” says Joseph Ricci, TRSA president/CEO. “By measuring leachate, and not simply relying on a modeling format, Arcadis realistically portrayed the minuscule amount of metals that shop towel users are exposed to, reaffirming our confidence there is absolutely no risk to users.”

Reusable cloth shop towels remain the wiper of choice for industrial applications due to their absorbency and cost benefits, TRSA says. They are not regulated as solid or hazardous waste as long as launderers use the association’s voluntary management practices for handling and transporting them. A new federal rule, expected this summer, will codify these techniques.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. —At a high-level meeting last week at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency, officials of the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics and the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) continued their positive relationship by collaborating on plans to promote and document the steady elimination of nonylphenol ethoxylate (NPE) from wash chemistry.

The meeting followed EPA’s May 9 release of its analysis of NPE alternatives, which cited TRSA’s “industrial/institutional (I/I) laundry” constituency phasing out NPEs. EPA cited laundry wash chemistry formulators’ response to market demand for NPE alternatives and laundry operators’ pledge to eliminate NPE in saying the industry is “well along the way to reaching phase-out goals.”

The cooperative effort began in 2010 when TRSA told EPA that it would lead an industrywide phase-out of NPEs from all liquid detergent formulations by Dec. 31, 2013, and all powders one year later.

“This meeting with EPA officials represents continued cooperation between TRSA and regulators. I am pleased with the quality and expansion of our relationship,” says TRSA President and CEO Joseph Ricci.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) has launched the Hygienically Clean certification program to recognize textile services companies’ commitment to cleanliness through third-party, quantified biological testing and inspection.

The certification process eliminates subjectivity by verifying that textiles cleaned in these facilities meet hygiene standards appropriate for any type of business that uses garments, linens, towels, floor mats, mops and other professionally laundered items, the association says.

A specific designation for laundries with medical work—Hygienically Clean – Healthcare—is available and another will soon be offered for those who serve restaurants and other businesses where food safety is paramount—Hygienically Clean – Food Service.

To attain a Hygienically Clean certification, a laundry must deploy best management practices (BMPs) and pass bacteriological testing and facility inspections. Tests use the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) 61 protocol:

• Allows a minimal amount of bacteria to remain after textiles are laundered
• Pass/fail criteria of less than or equal to 20 colony forming units (cfu)

A laundry is not required to use particular processes, chemicals or BMPs to achieve certification—whatever tactics management feels are necessary can be used to achieve TRSA’s Minimum Performance Specifications as measured by bacteriological testing.  But BMPs must be documented in a written quality-control manual.

“Managers in many types of workplaces are becoming more conscientious about the sanitation of their processes,” explains TRSA President/CEO Joseph Ricci. “They want to be more confident that they are taking every step possible to prevent human illness in their facilities and their customers’.”

To approve laundries for Hygienically Clean certification, TRSA inspects them to review their documentation and observe their BMP deployment. After this initial on-site inspection, facilities are examined on a three-year basis. Bacteriological testing begins with one evaluation in each of the first three months the laundry is certified, then one every six months.

To learn more about the program, click here.  

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The International Textile Services Alliance (ITSA), a global community of executives from national and regional business-to-business textile service associations, has been developed to pursue certain common objectives, the founding associations have announced.

ITSA will work to create a cooperative international business-to-business textile services community to share and compile studies, research, best practices and market figures; and to identify common issues, challenges and research projects to minimize redundancies and maximize resources.

ITSA is founded by the European Textile Services Association (ETSA) and the Textile Rental Services Association of America (TRSA), together with intex from Germany and the Federatie van de Belgische Textielverzorging / Féderation Belge du Textile (FBT) from Belgium.

The Alliance will be formally launched in May at Texcare International in Frankfurt, Germany.

Membership in ITSA is open to business-to-business textile service associations and limited to one representative from each country. The organization will be managed by a Steering Committee composed of representatives from several of the founding organizations, including:

• Robert Long, Secretary-General, European Textiles Services Association (ETSA)
• Joseph Ricci, CEO, Textile Rental Services Association of America (TRSA)
• Maarten Van Severen, Committee President, Federatie van de Belgische Textielverzorging / Féderation Belge du Textile (FBT), Belgium
• Klaus Jahn, Geschäftsführer, intex Verband, Germany

Inaugural ITSA members include:

• Australia - Textile Rental and Laundry Association Australia Limited (TRLAA)
• Belgium: FBT – Federatie van de Belgische Textielverzorging / Fédération Belge de l’Entretien du Textile asbl.
• Denmark: BVT – Brancheforeningen for Vask og Tekstiludlejning
• Finland: Tekstiilihuoltoliitto Ry
• France: GEIST – Groupement des Entreprises Industrielles de Services Textiles
• Germany: intex – Industrieverband Textil Service e.V.
• Italy: ASSOSISTEMA – Associazione Sistema Industriale Integrato Servizi Tessili e Medici Affini
• Norway: NRV – Norwegian Dry Cleaning & Laundry Association
• Sweden: ST – Sveriges Tvätteriförbund
• Switzerland: VTS – Verband Textilpflege Schweiz
• United Kingdom: TSA – Textile Services Association
• United States of America — TRSA – Textile Rental Services Association of America

ITSA will meet annually to address important issues and trends impacting the international textile services community. These meetings will be hosted by the “local” association coinciding with leading international conferences including Texcare International, Expo Detergo International and the Clean Show.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) has launched an international initiative to lead the textile services industry to new heights in sustainability and environmental protection with the unveiling of its Clean Green certification program.

The new program recognizes companies that meet TRSA requirements for achieving efficiencies in water and energy conservation and adopting best management practices for reusing, reclaiming and recycling resources.

The certification gives the industry’s business-to-business customers third-party verification that the uniforms, tablecloths, bed sheets, floor mats, towels and other reusable textiles they procure from Clean Green-certified companies are laundered in an environmentally friendly manner, TRSA says.

Textile services companies will pay a per-plant fee to be considered for certification.

“Contracting with a Clean Green laundry is a commitment to sustainability and statement of conscientiousness about natural resources, part of managing a supply chain with maximum environmental protection in mind,” notes Joseph Ricci, TRSA president and CEO.

More business owners and operators are modifying their production technologies, processes and work habits to improve efficiency and conserve supplies. “Clean Green prompts them to consider how their choices of outsourced functions such as laundry affect their total environmental impact,” Ricci observes.

Businesses that opt for work uniform rental service and linen supply from textile services companies—as opposed to assigning staff to wash work clothes at home or using smaller on-premise or commercial laundries for linens—have chosen the superior route for minimizing natural resources depletion, according to TRSA.

Textile services operations with the highest-speed, largest-capacity equipment are most likely to exceed Clean Green standards due to such machinery’s energy and water efficiencies, TRSA says. Because these industrial-scale laundries have hundreds or even thousands of customers, they are large enough to economically deploy the latest technologies for removing pollutants, recovering heat and reusing rinse water, among other resource-saving functions.

Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply, based in Jessup, Pa., is the first launderer in the world to be certified Clean Green.

For more details about the TRSA program that is open to members and non-members, go here.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The textile services industry has reached new heights in natural resources conservation, according to the latest Laundry Environmental Stewardship Program (LaundryESP®) survey released by the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA).

Responses compiled from 500 U.S. TRSA member facilities indicated that their carbon footprint per pound of laundry is 11% smaller than in 2006, driven by a 14%-per-pound decline in energy use. Water consumption has dropped 6% in that time.

The results emerged on the heels of a study published by a European textile services coalition that concluded the production technology typically used by TRSA members “is the most sustainable way of doing laundry, almost without loss of quality and functionality.”

Such large-scale washing, drying and wrinkle removal is up to three times more sustainable than a domestic laundry process, the European group concluded.

It added that TRSA members’ techniques were also proven up to twice as effective in this respect as on-premise laundries (OPLs).

In terms of carbon footprint (carbon dioxide production), the metric most associated with sustainability, LaundryESP® determined that TRSA member laundries now generate 0.36 pounds of CO2 per pound of laundry washed. That’s a 24% decline since 1997, the first year of data tracking.

This prevents emission of 1.49 billion pounds of CO2 per year, which is the equivalent of taking 135,000 typical cars off the road. It would be necessary to plant roughly 30 million trees to achieve a similar reduction.

“LaundryESP® is a testimonial to TRSA members’ commitment to improving their efficiency, which enhances the environment and the economy,” says TRSA President Joseph Ricci. “Sustainability in commerce is not just about expending fewer resources, it means achieving those gains year after year because it’s profitable to do so.”

Businesses that patronize TRSA member facilities deserve much of the credit for the textile services industry’s greater efficiencies, according to Ricci.

“They understand that sending their uniforms, linens, floor mats, towels and other textile products to TRSA members is the most economical way to clean these,” he says. “LaundryESP® proves to our members’ customers that their patronage of TRSA companies is ‘greening’ their own businesses more than ever and enabling our members to continue to be vital corporate citizens in cities and towns across the nation.”

TRSA has prioritized promoting member companies’ services to facilities now using OPLs as well as businesses that could substitute durable, reusable cloth products for the non-launderable or paper equivalents they now buy.

The new research provides up-to-date confirmation that professional uniform service is a pro-environment choice that’s becoming more sustainable, Ricci notes.

The LaundryESP® findings indicate how TRSA members’ resource requirements have dwindled:

• 2.55 gallons of water per laundered pound, down 33% since 1997, a 9.9-billion-gallon annual differential, or enough to serve the residential purposes of 270,000 people in a year.
• 2,260 Btu of energy, down 27%, due to declines of 26% in natural gas, 9% in electricity, 81% in propane, 75% in fuel oils, and 30% in all hydrocarbon (production) fuels.

These combined reductions save energy at the rate of 11 trillion Btu per year, or enough to power 116,000 typical U.S. households.

Recent data comparing the sustainability of large-scale TRSA member laundering techniques to domestic and OPL processes were generated by TKT, the research arm of the Dutch national associations for textile services (FTN) and dry cleaning (Netex).

CINET, a council of mostly European national associations, published these studies.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — To address emerging confusion due to the disposable wiper industry’s most recent attack on the hygiene of clean shop towels, Textile Rental Services Association of America (TRSA) member companies are explaining to users of these laundered products the frivolity of claims that these goods contain trace amounts of ingestible metals.

TRSA has made the case against the validity of the analysis publicized July 11 that updates findings from 2003 for the International Nonwovens & Disposables Association (INDA).

In their new documentation, researchers for Gradient Corp., which also conducted the 2003 INDA study, noted they examined only 10 towels to reach their conclusions. They produced no evidence of any harm from use of these items, insinuating that metals could migrate from towels to users’ hands but offering no evidence that any such transfer occurs.

The analysis does not prove the presence of metals in washed shop towels, TRSA notes, and if any were present, they could not escape because laundering would bind them to towel fibers.

“The findings assume that workers wipe their lips with a laundered shop towel twice a day,” observes TRSA President Joseph Ricci. “Such a baseless assumption serves no purpose other than to strike fear and create doubt.”

Even the researchers noted their lack of methodology for evaluating exposure to metals from towels.

“The hygienic and economic benefits of using laundered goods have long been realized by manufacturing and service industries but have rarely been publicized,” Ricci says. “Marketers of disposables cannot deliver these same attributes so they are determined to spend whatever money is necessary to discredit reusables instead.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA) is preparing to bring together the association’s committees and its government advocacy program for a three-day event in the nation’s capital next month.

The TRSA Leadership & Legislative Conference, set for March 21-23 in Washington, will be a unique opportunity to be part of TRSA’s voice and direction, association leaders say. The Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center, National Harbor, Md., is hosting the event.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Pledging to enhance the Textile Rental Services Association’s role in representing the industry to customer businesses and government, Woody Ostrow was elected chairman of the TRSA board during the association’s recent Annual Convention in California.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Members of the Textile Rental Services Association (TRSA), representing the $15 billion textile services and commercial laundry industry, are preparing for the group’s Annual Convention slated for Oct. 17-19 at The Lodge in Torrey Pines, La Jolla, Calif.