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| EPA, CDC Laud Nation's First Wet Cleaning Prison |
| By EPA/CDC |
| Published: 06/15/2001 |
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Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Corrections visited Soledad State Prison today to announce the first program in the country where inmates will use wet cleaning - an environmentally responsible alternative to dry cleaning - as part of its vocational training program. The program, made possible by a $10,000 federal grant from the Vocational and Technical Education Act and an additional $12,000 in CDC vocational funds, allows inmates at Soledad to process 23 tons of laundry per year while learning a new trade. Prisoners clean officers' uniforms, prison employees' clothing, and laundry for local non-profit organizations, such as school band uniform and graduation gowns. In addition, the EPA provided $40,000 to the Environmental Finance Center in Hayward to promote the vocational wet cleaning project. 'This innovative project not only benefits our air and water, but it trains a future work force in a burgeoning environmental field,' said Jack Broadbent, the EPA's air division director in San Francisco. 'This is a great example of government working together to benefit the common good.' 'This project supports the goals of the Vocational and Technical Education Act in that it further advances technology in the classroom,' CDC Acting Director Steven Cambra, Jr. said. 'Our vocational instuctors are always looking for ways to improve our equipment and to initiate new innovative technology," said CTF Warden Jim Hamlet. 'Dry cleaners are not opposed to wet cleaning, but they're reluctant to make the investment. According to our research, for professional wetcleaning to prosper, we need to increase consumer awareness of and demand for this alternative and then provide a better trained workforce.' said Susan Blachman, Associate Director of the Environmental Finance Center, Region IX. 'This program offers that training.' Soledad vocational training officials contacted the Environmental Finance Center after attending an EPA-sponsored wet cleaning seminar in 1997. Since instituting the program in November, the prison has cut its operating costs by 80 percent and reduced its use by 50 percent of perchlorethylene - a possible human carcinogen. |
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