Undercover Investigation into the Laundry Industry's Dark Secrets: Dirty Workshops Washing Bed Sheets for Beijing Five-Star Hotels

Bed sheets

Except for Xiaoshengmiao in Tongzhou, there is also a cluster of laundry factories in the urban-rural fringe of Shunyi, filled with many "small workshop" laundries composed of 10 to 20 people. In a small laundry factory, several workers were sorting bed sheets, while the ground beneath their feet was flooded with sewage, which was discharged directly without any treatment.

The expensive-looking snow-white bed sheets and quilts in five-star hotels are actually "born" in small laundry factories full of sewage and flies. Recently, Beijing Morning News reporters conducted undercover visits to several laundry factories located in the urban-rural fringe of Beijing and found that these laundries have worrying sanitary conditions and sewage flowing everywhere. However, in the laundry workshops, reporters found many "to be washed" bed sheets sent from big-name hotels. Industry insiders told reporters that the city's laundry industry faces many problems such as widespread "black shops," unguaranteed washing quality, illegal groundwater extraction, illegal sewage discharge, serious environmental pollution, and weak supervision, which urgently need to be addressed.

[Undercover Discovery]

Location: Xiaoshengmiao, Tongzhou District

Outside the East Sixth Ring Road, around Xiaoshengmiao in Tongzhou District, there are many laundry factories, often located in village alleys that are hard to find. On May 12 this year, during a joint night inspection by the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and Tongzhou District Environmental Protection Bureau, they were exposed to public view (see main photo).

Issue 1: Sulfur dioxide concentration exceeds limit by 7 times

This May inspection found that Xiaoshengmiao Village was listed on the "blacklist" due to multiple laundry enterprises illegally discharging pollutants. During this inspection by the Municipal and Tongzhou District Environmental Protection Bureaus, the sulfur dioxide concentration in the coal-fired boiler room of Beijing Yilanbao Company reached 406 mg/m³, exceeding the limit by 7 times, and was sealed on-site by law enforcement officers.

Data from the Tongzhou District Environmental Protection Bureau shows that there are about 11 laundry factories around Xiaoshengmiao Village in Tongzhou, all using coal-fired boilers, mainly washing bedding from hotels and guesthouses. The Tongzhou District Environmental Protection Bureau stated that during the environmental inspection and investigation in March, some laundry factories that illegally discharged pollutants were punished.

Issue 2: Dirty and messy laundry workshop environment

Recently, reporters "followed the clues" to conduct an undercover visit around Xiaoshengmiao. As vehicles entered the village, the roads became difficult to pass. After winding through many turns, reporters finally found several adjacent laundry factories. These laundries were very hidden and had no door number signs. "What are you here for?" Just after entering the gate, someone cautiously approached to inquire. The reporter lied that they were from a hotel for inspection and business talks. Under the doubtful gazes of several people, the reporter quickly entered the laundry workshop.

The workshop was small and dim, with washing equipment making a roaring noise all around. Everywhere on the shelves were scattered "to be washed" and "washed" bed sheets and covers, some laid flat, some wrapped in packages. Several female workers shook the "washed" bed sheets and then threw them into nearby storage baskets. The workshop was dirty everywhere, with flies flying all around.

Issue 3: Five-star hotel bed sheets waiting to be washed in the workshop

The situation in another laundry factory next door was similar, except the workshop was temporarily shut down with no workers, only "to be washed" clothes piled everywhere and flies flying all over. Employees of this factory said that the laundry usually works at night and delivers the cleaned items to customers during the day. The reporter found clothing from the popular "e-bag wash" laundry product and "to be washed" bed sheets sent from a well-known five-star hotel in this laundry factory.

Company Response

E-bag wash: Problem factory is not a cooperative partner

The relevant person in charge confirmed to our reporter that after careful investigation, the laundry factory located in the urban-rural fringe area outside the East Sixth Ring Road found by the reporter is not a franchise partner of e-bag wash.

The person in charge said that e-bag wash mainly cooperates with brands such as Rongchang, Funait, and Yiersa. Currently, the company is investigating which franchisee caused this incident and will definitely terminate the cooperation with such franchisees.

Hotel: Had cooperation but has been terminated

A relevant person in charge of a well-known five-star hotel in Beijing confirmed to our reporter that the laundry factory found by the reporter was indeed a partner of the hotel, but due to some hygiene standard issues found in the laundry, the cooperation has been terminated.

The person in charge said that at the beginning of this year, after reviewing quotes from three companies and on-site assessments, the hotel chose to cooperate with this laundry factory. Initially, the laundry factory was in good condition. However, when the hotel management conducted spot checks, some issues not meeting the hotel's hygiene standards were found. The hotel issued three written warnings in March, June, and July, requiring immediate rectification. Due to poor rectification results, the hotel decided to terminate the contract and completely ended the cooperation on July 25.

Regulatory Accountability: Many departments but weak supervision

With so many problems in the laundry industry, are there corresponding standards to regulate it? Are there management departments for supervision? Reporters learned that regarding laundry industry standards, China has a "Laundry Industry Management Measures," but local regulations and standard systems around this measure are rare. For example, there are no national mandatory standards on how laundry factories should be built or how detergents should be used on fabrics.

"Even if there are standards, whether they can be properly enforced is also a problem." It is understood that the laundry industry is regulated by multiple departments including the Commerce Commission, Industry and Commerce, Quality Supervision, Health, and Environmental Protection, covering management, hygiene, environment, and other aspects. However, due to limited law enforcement personnel and the concealed distribution of laundry factories, supervision of the laundry industry is weak.

Development Suggestion: Build Large-Scale Laundry Service Parks

Industry insiders suggest that Beijing should establish large-scale, standardized, low-energy-consumption new environmentally friendly laundry service parks around the city, integrating existing large and small laundry enterprises, using advanced technology to save resources and energy, fundamentally reversing the unhealthy development trend of the laundry service industry.

This laundry service park should provide enterprises with unified, scientifically designed workshops, equipment, resources, energy, and sewage treatment systems, reasonably allocate personnel and transport vehicles, so as to improve laundry service quality while achieving green energy saving and environmental protection. The insider said that standardized laundry service parks can significantly reduce the use and waste of resources and energy such as water, electricity, and gas, change the current situation of excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution in the laundry service industry, and ultimately achieve zero pollution and low energy consumption. "In terms of supervising laundry quality, it will also be easier, for example, cameras can be uniformly installed in workshops to monitor every step and process of laundry in real time. For logistics fleets, unified nighttime delivery and transportation can also reduce road congestion and exhaust emissions."

The industry insider said that deep integration and model innovation of the laundry industry and its upstream and downstream industries can also be carried out, taking into account the development of strategic emerging industries such as ecological agriculture, financial leasing, and human resource services, driving the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, improving the overall service quality of the laundry industry, and becoming a pilot project to solve residents' employment.

Data Statistics

Beijing's daily laundry volume exceeds 16,000 tons

Laundry volume of garment factories is 30 tons

Laundry volume of office buildings is 50 tons

Laundry volume of 1,200 social dry cleaning shops is 120 tons

Laundry volume of 67,000 taxis is 134 tons

Laundry volume of 1,000 beauty institutions is 210 tons

Laundry volume of seat covers and blankets for 1,000 airplanes is 300 tons

Laundry volume of bedding for 56 trains is 321 tons

Laundry volume of bedding for 1,935 hospitals is 1,575 tons

Laundry volume of 2,055 bathhouses is 1,792 tons

Laundry volume of 10,000 catering industry establishments is 5,600 tons

Laundry volume of 6,169 star-rated and economy hotels is 6,010 tons

Note: According to statistics, the market not included in the statistics is still very large, and with the rapid development of the tertiary industry, these numbers are increasing year by year.

Industry Revealed

Laundry Industry "Black Shops" Are Everywhere

An industry insider who has worked in the laundry industry for many years revealed to Beijing Morning Post the current situation of the existing laundry industry in Beijing. According to this insider, there are thousands of large, medium, and small laundry factories in Beijing, mainly distributed in urban-rural fringe areas, concealed and not easy to find. Among them, only a dozen large enterprises are relatively regular, while the rest of the laundry factories, whether small factories with 10 to 20 people or medium-sized factories with 60 to 70 people, are extremely irregular in all aspects.

"The industry threshold is low. Those who have worked in factories before can easily start a business. Simply put, they try every means to reduce costs, and laundry quality cannot be guaranteed at all," said the insider. He revealed that currently, "black shops" are everywhere in Beijing's laundry industry, with about 30% of laundry factories operating without business licenses or using other licenses as substitutes, essentially "black shops."

These "black shops" often hire some temporary laundry workers, and the laundry process is also "cutting corners," compressing various costs to survive.

Malicious Competition Causes Closure of Regular Factories

Due to factors such as malicious price undercutting, some originally relatively regular laundry factories have been forced to "close down."

The insider provided the reporter with a comparison table of expenses and income in the laundry industry over many years. Taking 1998 as an example, the rent for a regular medium-sized laundry factory was 20,000 yuan/year, which increased to 450,000 yuan/year in 2014, a 21-fold increase; water fee was 1.6 yuan/liter in 1998, rising to 7.15 yuan/liter in 2014, a 3-fold increase; electricity fee was 0.5 yuan/kWh in 1998, rising to 1.5 yuan/kWh in 2014, a 2-fold increase; salary was 400 yuan/month/person in 1998, increasing to 2,200 yuan/month/person in 2014, a 4-fold increase.

However, while the above costs increased significantly, laundry fees only increased slightly. Laundry fees were 5.9 yuan/set in 1998 and 9.35 yuan/set in 2014, less than doubling.

"Costs rise, but laundry fees cannot increase accordingly. Why? Because malicious competition leads to the industry's abnormal development," said the insider. As a result, some regular laundry factories find it difficult to cover costs by following standard procedures, while some small workshop laundry factories take advantage of this to grab orders and complete the work by "cutting corners" to reduce costs. Even some large laundry factories now subcontract orders to small workshops.

The "clean" ones are basically not washed at all

This industry insider also told reporters that over 90% of current laundry companies cut corners to reduce costs and maximize profits. "Many workers' actual job is sorting." The insider revealed that workers sort the "to be washed" clothes sent by customers into categories: those that look relatively clean are put in one pile, some dirty ones in another, and especially dirty ones in yet another.

Often, the more five-star the hotel, the lazier the approach, because clothes that look clean don't need washing at all; they are just folded and sent back. Slightly dirty ones are rinsed with clean water without adding detergent; only the especially dirty ones require detergent for cleaning. "The washing process is also reduced; for example, instead of rinsing three times, they just rinse once. Detergents are used as cheaply as possible, many of low quality and potentially harmful to human health."

The industry insider said that currently, the overall quality of laundry services in Beijing and nationwide is substandard. Worse still, some small workshops even mix hospital patient gowns with hotel bed sheets during washing. Even five-star hotels cannot meet the cleanliness and comfort requirements for laundry quality. High-end hotels dress the city in a glamorous "outerwear," while poor-quality laundry services become the rotten "intimate underwear."

Over 90% of companies illegally extract groundwater

The industry's irregularities not only cause laundry quality issues but also serious energy consumption and pollution. The insider told reporters that the water usage in the laundry service industry is astonishing, with prominent problems of illegal groundwater extraction and direct sewage discharge.

Taking a medium-sized laundry factory with 70 to 80 employees as an example, it requires 300 to 400 tons of water daily. For the whole of Beijing, the annual water usage for laundry services is about 580 million tons, enough for 2.16 million households for a year. However, to reduce costs, laundry companies often have their own "tricks"—illegal well drilling and groundwater theft.

"In this industry, it can be said that 95% of companies drill wells to use groundwater," the insider revealed. Most companies secretly drill wells themselves and do not pay water fees; a few companies get help from the water bureau to drill wells, in which case they pay a symbolic water fee.

The insider admitted that when he first entered the laundry industry in 1996, water could be found by digging 50 meters down, but now one must dig 350 meters underground to find water. The continuous decline of the groundwater level may cause serious consequences such as ground subsidence and collapse. "Now the underground is almost completely dug out."

Besides the astonishing water usage, the problem of direct sewage discharge is also very prominent. "Many companies discharge sewage directly without any treatment, causing serious environmental pollution and posing hidden dangers to residents living nearby."

Most dust removal equipment is just for show

"Only a few companies in this industry use clean energy; over 90% burn boilers, and exceeding emissions is very common," said the industry insider. Although Beijing has explicitly banned the use of boilers, to control costs, most laundry companies have not switched to clean energy. Burning coal produces large amounts of harmful gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which are discharged into the atmosphere untreated, greatly impacting air quality and the environment.

"Some companies install simple dust removal equipment to turn black smoke into white smoke. But in fact, many small dust removal devices are ineffective, and installing large dust removal equipment costs twice as much as just burning boilers," the insider said. Some companies symbolically install dust removal equipment just to pass inspections, but may not actually use it. "Because using it increases costs. For example, if burning coal costs 2,000 yuan a day, turning on dust removal equipment would increase costs to 2,500 yuan."

In addition, the laundry industry requires a large transportation fleet, but because transportation is relatively scattered, it adds "fuel to the fire" for Beijing's already congested traffic and vehicle exhaust pollution.