Home
Share |

Content about Medicine

May 28, 2012
Protecting Drycleaning Workers from Heat Illness

WASHINGTON — Working in hot or hot and humid conditions increases potential hazards

WASHINGTON — Working in hot or hot and humid conditions can place additional and generally avoidable hazards to the health and safety of drycleaning or laundry workers. And during what is typically the hottest time of year in most locales, it’s more important than ever that employers provide detailed instructions on preventive measures and adequate protection necessary to prevent heat stress, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Certain safety problems are common to hot environments. Heat tends to promote accidents due to the slipperiness of sweaty palms, dizziness, or the fogging of safety glasses. Wherever there exists steam, the possibility of burns from accidental contact also exists.

Aside from these obvious dangers, the frequency of accidents, in general, appears to be higher in hot environments. Working in a hot environment lowers mental alertness and physical performance. Increased body temperature and physical discomfort promote irritability, anger and other emotional states, which sometimes cause workers to overlook safety procedures or to divert attention from hazardous tasks.

December 22, 2011
EPA Finalizes Plan to Clean Up Old Dry Cleaner Site in Hempstead, N.Y.

NEW YORK — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a plan to clean up ground water at the Peninsula Boulevard Ground Water Plume Superfund site in Hempstead, N.Y.

The ground water is contaminated with tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene, dry-cleaning chemicals that can seriously impact people’s health, EPA says.

The cleanup plan entails extracting ground water from the site using pumping wells and treating the water to remove the contaminants before it is disposed of at a public wastewater treatment facility or sent back into surface or ground water.

Residents in the area get their drinking water from the Long Island American Water Co., which operates a drinking water well field approximately 1,000 feet north of the Peninsula Boulevard site. EPA did not detect any contaminants above acceptable levels in ground water from the company during its investigation.

A series of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation investigations in the 1990s revealed an extensive ground water contaminant plume at the site of the former Grove Cleaners, EPA says.

April 12, 2011
M&B’s Pink Hangers Net $8,370 to Help Fight Breast Cancer

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — M&B Hangers recently presented the American Cancer Society with a check for $8,370, representing donations from sales of pink hangers for the months of October, November and December 2010.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — M&B Hangers recently presented the American Cancer Society with a check for $8,370, representing donations from sales of pink hangers for the months of October, November and December 2010.

M&B launched the pink hangers campaign in October to help its customers contribute to cancer research. Distributors purchase the pink wire hangers, which feature special capes carrying inspirational phrases, for a small extra fee; M&B then matches the donations dollar-for-dollar.

July 19, 2010
American Cancer Society Calls for Further Study of Perc

NEW YORK — A new report from the American Cancer Society and other world health groups has identified “gaps in research” for 20 suspected carcinogens including perchloroethylene.

Entitled “Identification of research needs to resolve the carcinogenicity of high-priority IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer] carcinogens,” the report intends to prioritize the compounds for additional research and scientific study that leads to a more definitive classification of the agents.

March 23, 2010
EPA Outlines New Drinking-Water Strategy, Targets Perc

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlined a new strategy to protect the public from chemical contaminants in drinking water yesterday, as well as plans to revise its drinking-water standard for four chemical contaminants, including perchloroethylene.

July 18, 2007
Smoking Bans Won't Hurt Business, Most Cleaners Say

CHICAGO, Ill. — Seven out of 10 (70.4%) drycleaners don’t think that the bans against smoking indoors passing throughout the country will have any effect on the industry by eliminating an unpleasant odor that consumers want their drycleaners to remove, the most recent Wire survey says. Speaking as consumers, the same majority (70.4%) is in favor of such bans.