The laundry industry is a highly technical and high-risk industry

Recently, media in various provinces across the country have exposed laundries, attracting widespread social attention. In response, a reporter from the editorial department of "Sichuan Laundry" magazine recently interviewed Secretary-General Yang Ze of the Sichuan Laundry Industry Association on related issues.

Question: Recently, some media reporters went undercover in certain laundries to expose what they considered irregular business practices. Many media outlets reprinted these reports, including our province's Huaxi Metropolis Daily, which sparked public concern about the quality of laundry services. What is your evaluation of this?

Answer: Recently, some media nationwide have exposed certain irregular behaviors and problems in the laundry industry through media reports. From the disclosed content and facts, I personally believe there is a true and objective side to it. This is a good thing, fully demonstrating that this industry has attracted the attention of the media and the public. It will definitely play a role in promoting and advancing the development of China's laundry industry in the future.

Question: It is said that you have been in this industry for nearly thirty years, working from laundry worker and ironer to manager of the laundry department in a five-star hotel. Now, as Secretary-General of the Provincial Laundry Industry Association, having handled tens of thousands of garments, what is your view and evaluation of the laundry industry?

Answer: More than twenty years ago, I worked in a high-end tourism foreign affairs hotel and was assigned to the laundry department to learn laundry. I cried at that time, thinking the leadership was targeting me, and I refused to go. Later, the hotel general manager talked to me: "Xiao Yang, the hotel leadership believes you have strong work ability and entrusted you with an important department, hoping you can handle it." More than twenty years have passed. Honestly, working in this industry has its sour, bitter, and sweet moments. This industry is really not as simple as people imagine. People are still unfamiliar with it, and the public does not fully understand it. This industry is highly technical, very risky, dirty, and tiring — a very special industry. Laundry relates to whether consumers' personal interests are harmed or deceived, and also concerns everyone's health and emotions. Due to many irregular behaviors and non-standard processes in the industry itself, combined with a serious lack of laundry and ironing technology, accidents and disputes occur frequently.

I personally believe that the problems exposed this time mainly reflect issues in the industry's management mechanism, strict requirements of industry access systems, the business models and mechanisms of laundry chain management companies, and government supervision.

This industry is a sunrise industry. From ancient times to today, the laundry industry will always exist. Especially in the nearly thirty years since the reform and opening up, the laundry industry in our province has developed rapidly like bamboo shoots after rain. Preliminary statistics show there are more than 20,000 laundries and over one million employees in the province. This has played a role in promoting the province's national economic development, employment, building harmony, and maintaining stability. At the same time, the laundry industry is closely related and interconnected with the clothing industry, textile and leather industry, mechanical processing and manufacturing, chemical production and sales, import and export, and expanding domestic demand.

Question: You mentioned that this industry is highly technical and risky. What are the specifics?

Answer: To properly iron a suit requires about 30 minutes, and the finished garment must be crisp. High-end wool and cashmere suits generally require single washing or washing with fabrics of the same type, with short washing times. Detergents must be filtered and recycled through steaming, low-temperature drying with recovery rates above 99%, cooled with cold air, and after removal, hung to ventilate for an hour before ironing. Ideally, garments should be hung without packaging.

The technology for washing clothes with water is even more demanding than dry cleaning. Water washing is divided into machine washing and hand washing; hand washing further divides into gentle washing, rubbing, and twisting. Pre-treatment is required before washing, using pre-treatment agents such as collar stain removers to soak collars, cuffs, hems, and other dirtier areas. Irregular actions are strictly prohibited.

According to fabric texture, clothing type, color, and thickness, washing procedures, main washing time, temperature, detergent concentration, and water level all have different requirements for different garments. Rinsing, sterilization, disinfection, and neutralization of residual detergent must be done according to procedures and requirements. Finally, washed clothes must not fade or deform, pH values must meet standards, bacterial indices should be within limits, then heated drying (or absorption drying, hanging drying, shade drying, flat drying) and ironing are performed.

More than 20 years ago, I washed and cleaned the clothes of a professor from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Only the label remained because the fabric was made of milk protein fiber and required cold water washing at room temperature. I used high-temperature washing, which cost 60,000 yen at the time.

Last year, a laundry caused color transfer on a high-end Hermès coat and compensated 30,000 yuan. Nowadays, the variety of clothing fabrics changes rapidly, and there are many quality issues with dye fixation. Clothing styles and combinations are ever-changing, which is extremely unreasonable and irregular from a washing perspective. Laundry owners have poor identification ability, causing frequent washing accidents and disputes.

Question: The report mentioned that the laundry industry is highly profitable with astonishing profit margins. What is your view?

Answer: I have noticed the news reports. I believe this industry is not highly profitable. If the situations exposed in the reports are true, then it is cheating people.

According to the current laundry charges in our province, if all operations follow standard procedures, it should be a low-profit industry. Pricing and charges need to be discussed and guided to standardize. Ordinary charges, washing charges, water washing charges, ironing charges, color repair and alteration charges, special service charges such as hemming, patching, zipper replacement, button sewing, and charges for high-end garments should be detailed and not uniformly priced. Nowadays, a store mainly faces high rent, high wages, and high costs for water, electricity, and materials. If it does not operate honestly, is not scaled, and is not standardized, many laundries may be eliminated by the market and consumers and find it difficult to continue operating.

Question: Is tetrachloroethylene toxic?

Answer: Tetrachloroethylene is definitely toxic. It is recognized worldwide as a dry cleaning solvent. Currently, there is no true substitute for tetrachloroethylene as a cleaning solvent. All chemical products are toxic to the environment and humans to some extent. Are pesticides, medicines, and cosmetics non-toxic? The key is how people use them.

Wet cleaning is carried out under a fully sealed, 100% leak-free state through cyclic filtration, decomposing dirt on clothes and repeatedly rinsing the clothes, then filtering and settling repeatedly to achieve cleanliness. Dry cleaning solvent is distilled during the washing process; when the temperature reaches 121 degrees Celsius, the gas enters the cooling device and then the oil-water separator, and the distilled dry cleaning solvent is used again for washing clothes.

The storage and preservation of dry cleaning solvent are all done in a shaded, sealed state. For a 10-kilogram dry cleaning machine, each machine naturally consumes 2-2.5 kilograms of dry cleaning solvent, worth about 40 yuan. When the dry cleaning solvent needs to be replenished, it is added accordingly. It is not the "old oil" as reported by the media, which shows a lack of understanding of the industry. Consumers can rest assured; the standards are the same nationwide and worldwide.

Question: Thank you, Secretary-General Yang, for telling us some basic conditions of the industry and introducing the position and role of this industry in the national economy. I believe this industry cannot be ignored. The government and functional departments should play a supervisory and guiding role; the media and consumers should play a supervisory role; industry associations should provide technical training, technical exchange, and technical guidance; laundry practitioners should improve themselves continuously, enhance their skills, operate with integrity, and gain the trust of consumers to stand invincible. Laundry chain management companies should change their business models, turning more development into better services for franchisees, making the laundry and dyeing industry more standardized, high-quality, and high-standard, providing consumers with genuine and affordable laundry services.

[Sichuan Laundry] Magazine Editorial Department Reporter: Wenyong

Note: Yang Ze, Secretary-General of the Sichuan Laundry and Dyeing Industry Association, expert in the laundry and dyeing industry of the China General Chamber of Commerce, senior assessor of national laundry and dyeing vocational qualifications, and judge of national vocational skills competitions. He has been engaged in the laundry industry in high-end foreign-related tourist hotels and restaurants for nearly 30 years.