May 16, 2013   

Shameel Thawerbhoy of Swiss Cleaners in Dallas says that about 15 years ago,his father Zale decided to not only do all the dry cleaning on the premises, but also to do it with a twist of green too.

“My dad had many years of experience with the traditional perchloroethylene, PERC for short, and decided it was time for a change because he was aware of the harmful effects PERC had on the environment and the negative health effects it had,” Thawerbhoy says.  “He proceeded to look for alternatives and discovered a new dry cleaning process called GreenEarth.”

Shameel Thawerbhoy of Swiss Cleaners. All photos by Phillip Shinoda

According to the GreenEarth website, the process was discovered by a scientist working with a solution used in cosmetics who realized it was removing the fats and dirt from his hands without drying them out. He wondered if it could do the same for clothes. He knew that silicone has been around for a long time and had a wide variety of uses, but no one had found a way to use it for dry cleaning yet. The process of doing so was patented and now forms one of several baseline patents for the GreenEarth Cleaning system.

Swiss Cleaners was one of the 10 pilot cleaners in the nation to start using GreenEarth. Thawerbhoy says as soon as Swiss Cleaners began using the GreenEarth Cleaning system “our customers immediately fell in love with the new method to dry clean their clothes.”

Offering everything from dry cleaning and laundry to alterations, Swiss Cleaners has been in business for 30 years. Zale Thawerbhoy left his job in the clothes manufacturing to open the dry cleaning venue.

“One dry cleaning facility quickly expanded into over 25 dry cleaners all over the Dallas metroplex,” the son explains. “As time moved along my father sold all of the dry cleaners and focused on the store we currently have in the Park Cities at 3030 Mockingbird Lane where the cleaners has been for the past 25 years.”

Swiss Cleaners is also the only truly green dry cleaners in the Dallas area, according to Thawerbhoy.

                       
 Photo: Cleaning expert Randy Hair with Green Earth Cleaning Machine.
Swiss Cleaners recycles cleaning solution and purifies for reuse by distilling it.    

“It’s a very expensive process to get into because one needs completely new machines and many dry cleaners do not feel it is worth the benefit,” he explains.  “Swiss Cleaners was willing to absorb the costs because we felt doing the right thing was better than doing the cheap thing. There have been quite a few 'eco-friendly' cleaners that have popped up the past five years, but they use something of a new improved, less harmful version of PERC. It does not contain the benefits of GreenEarth, but is an upgrade from PERC.” 

Everyone knows too that at a typical dry cleaner the clothes come back with that "dry cleaning smell," but Thawerbhog says GreenEarth is completely odorless and safe for all garments and that includes anything from a Chanel dress full of sequins to a favorite pair of casual jeans.

“The other dry cleaners are also regulated by the EPA, while we have no regulations because our dry cleaning solvent is completely non-toxic,” he adds. So clean is Swiss Cleaners dry cleaning process in fact, that SMU, the owners of the shopping center where the cleaners is located, were concerned that there would be ground contamination so they bore a hole 20-feet deep, but found no contamination at all."

Another positive eco-friendly angle for customers is that using GreenEarth also means that clothes tend to last longer.

“Customers have told us multiple times that their clothes have never lasted so long and still look as good as they did the they bought it,” Thawerbhoy says. “For shirts, which do not go through the dry cleaning process, we use soft water, which keeps the cuffs and collars white. As an added benefit we don't use chemicals to make the water soft, we use special magnets that cause the water to have the benefits of being soft without that chemical residue.”

In addition to using eco-friendly products, the folks at Swiss Cleaners also recycle everything from plastic bags to hangers to paper and even old, discarded clothes.  

“We clean the old clothes free of charge and donate the items to the local Salvation Army,” Thawerbhoy adds.

At home he says too that his family also enjoys their time.

“Although we spend many hours working at the store, working brings us together as a family,” he says. “We are a very close family and are fortunate to have all of our members in the Dallas area. We like to think that our customers are like our family and try to maintain a warm, welcoming environment in the store.”   ( Zale and Shameel Thawerbhoy in front of Green Earth Cleaning machine )

Swiss Cleaners 
3030 Mockingbird Ln
Dallas, TX 75205
(214) 987-0665

Another Green Earth Process cleaner
Centre Cleaners
4620 Bryant Irvin Rd. #502
Fort Worth, TX  76132
817-370-6258

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