Unless You Regularly Tackle Tough Commercial Laundry Stains, Chlorine Bleach Most Likely is an Unnecessary Risk to Your Wash-Dry-Fold Service
I recently received a phone call from a CLA member who had just ruined a wash-dry-fold order. As it turned out, one of her employees used chlorine bleach on an expensive sheet set – and, although the sheets themselves survived the ordeal, the decorative trim lost its color.
As you may recall from some of my previous columns, I’ve never been a big fan of chlorine bleach, also known as “reducing bleach.” This type of product actually removes the color from garments. As a result, using chlorine bleach carries a very high risk. And, if you’re strictly handling typical residential wash-dry-fold laundry, I would argue that any use of chlorine bleach in those types of lightly soiled wash loads is a completely unnecessary risk.
In fact, at my laundromat, I banned the use of chlorine bleach for five years. We simply didn’t have that product in the store, because it was just too risky.
Since then, I’ve had to reintroduce chlorine bleach into my store’s stain-fighting mix – but only due to the growth of our commercial accounts business. Admittedly, there are times when you will require a strong dye stripper to successfully complete a commercial laundry load. With commercial laundry – especially items that have tannin-based stains, such as juices, coffee or tea – the best and easiest solution often is to use chlorine bleach.
However, despite reintroducing chlorine bleach to our arsenal, we have taken great measures to do so safely. We begin by storing it separately from our detergents and color-safe bleaches. What’s more, all of our laundry products are clearly marked, and we have specific containers strictly for the use of chlorine bleach.
Of course, you need to train your attendants to handle chlorine bleach very carefully. At my store, we use only concentrated, powdered chlorine bleach; however, if you’re using a liquid form of reducing bleach, you or your attendants (whoever is doing the bleaching) will be quite likely to damage an occasional piece of clothing, due to the bleach splattering. Frequently, with liquid bleach, it will sit on a garment and you won’t see any color movement until you apply water to it – and then the color will just come right off.
Therefore, from a safety standpoint, if you’re doing residential wash-dry-fold laundry only, I strongly recommend that you ban chlorine bleach from your store. There’s just no need for it.
In fact, for “normal, everyday laundry,” there are some amazingly effective oxygen bleaches on the market today that you can buy in bulk for reasonable prices. And they will do just as good a job or better than chlorine bleach.
If you’ve got a wash-dry-fold business, I would suggest using a quality detergent; in other words, you should be carrying products that are specifically formulated for commercial laundry, as opposed to over-the-counter detergents.
Next, purchase a high-quality, commercial-grade oxygen bleach. One of the key components of this color-safe bleach is a pH level of about 11, because a small amount of pH will help to activate the bleach so that it can do a much more effective job.
In addition, the bleach should contain a small amount of phosphates, which are hugely beneficial in the wash cycle.
Clearly, when utilizing these chemicals, it’s critical to train your employees in their use and to stress to them that all of these laundry products are concentrated (and they’re expensive), so they don’t need to use very much per load.
When we train our attendants, we use the example of the Tide pods. Just think about how small those are – and they each include detergent, fabric softener and bleach for one load. That’s three ingredients in one little pod that’s only about an inch-and-a-half square. And your wash-dry-fold business is likely using detergents and other products that are just as concentrated or more.
It’s crucial to make sure your staff understands that it doesn’t take a lot of detergent to do a good laundering job. The only time you need to add more chemicals to a load is if it’s very heavily soiled. Most wash-dry-fold laundry in a commercial washer can be cleaned with merely water and the action of the machine.
However, for those times when bleach is needed, I recommend a quality, commercial-grade oxygen bleach. It will always be color-safe, and you’ll never run the risk of having to call a client with bad news about her expensive set of new sheets.
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