Being truly green is a multi-faceted matter, explains Darrell New, who, for the past 21 years, has worked with the dry cleaning industry to improve quality and services. “Green cleaning is a combination of environmentally responsible policies, programs, and priorities,” New adds.

At Classic Cleaners, we know.  As the very first dry cleaners in the Indianapolis area to earn the designation Certified Environmental Drycleaner from the Drycleaning & Laundry Institute, we are proud to put a checkmark next to each one of the items on Darrell New’s how-to-tell-if-your-dry-cleaner-is-green list:

Responsible waste disposal:
None of the chemicals used at Classic Cleaners ever go into city sewers or underground tanks.  Used-up cleaning agents are saved in above-ground tanks to be removed by licensed chemical companies, who either recycle the chemicals or dispose of them through state-approved processes.
 

 Recycling:
 As New points out, many cleaners accept used wire hangers and plastic bags, but the question is – what happens from there. At Classic Cleaners, we gather hangers (not just ours, but any hangers customers collect). We reuse some, and have the rest professionally recycled.   

We encourage our customers to return plastic bags to us by putting them into the cleaning bag with the next order.  Classic Cleaners has contracted with a green recycling firm to turn that plastic into trash bags and other reusable items.     

Proper machine maintenance:
At our Classic Cleaners processing plants, the machinery is constantly being updated and replaced with energy-efficient, cost and labor-saving models.  Keeping the building itself in tip-top shape in terms of insulation and repairs helps further reduce energy costs. 

Carbon footprint reduction:
The biggest “carbon footprint” reduction of all, though, comes from reducing our customers’ need to drive their cars to drop off and pick up their laundry and dry cleaning!  Our free and convenient pick-up and delivery route service adds convenience while reducing carbon emission from automobile travels.

In this case a plus and a minus equals – green!  Not just green, but true green.  At Classic Cleaners, we don’t mean to boast, but we can’t help crowing about our Indiana 5-Star Environmental Recognition award!

By Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Table linen care at Classic Cleaners

If you’re like most families, it’s not an everyday occurrence, dining at home on a table spread with tablecloth and fine cloth napkins, that is.  Still, there’s no denying the fact – nothing adds elegance to a meal like crisp, clean, perfectly pressed table linen. 

And, at Classic Cleaners, we know table linen.  We give linens the old one-two-three :

1.   Our first task is removing stains. We’re so proud of our stain removal process that we guarantee removal of 100% of fresh stains (or the cleaning is free)!
2. Next comes laundering the linen in a special cleaning solution that helps restore the original beauty of the cloth.
3. At Classic Cleaners, drying and pressing happen in a single stage, which is possible only because of our large, professional press. Try as you might, it’s impossible to duplicate our process at home.  In fact, most dry cleaners cannot provide this kind of finish for table linens.

Two important reminders for you:

• Linens are breathers, too! Avoid storing clean table linens in plastic bags. (Tip: Clean pillowcases make great storage bags for fine linens.)
• It’s important to bring in all the pieces of a matching set to be cleaned at the same time.  Even if only seven of the dozen matching napkins were used, it’s best to bring in the entire set. As yourvalet.com points out, the same advice  holds true for matching sets of drapes and seat covers, sets of bedspreads, pillow shams, and drapes, and the top and bottom halves of suits. 
  

With Classic Cleaners’ professional expertise, you can be sure the color will be a perfect match! 

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

In the famous Edgar Allen Poe short story, The Telltale Heart, the murderer was convinced he’d covered his tracks.  “There was nothing to wash out – no stain of any kind,” he’d told himself.

Have you ever spilled something and had the stain disappear, leaving no sign of champagne, soda, or food? 

Telltale Stains Too Late To Fix

Weeks or even months or years later, a yellow or brown stain magically appears at the very spot of the original spill. How did that happen?

At Classic Cleaners, we see many such unwelcome “encore appearances” of stains.  Clear alcoholic beverages often don’t appear to have done any damage at the time they’re spilled on a dress, jacket, or trousers.  But, stealthy as ”telltale hearts”, back come the telltale signs of  past spills of tea, coffee, soda, or champagne, white wine, or fruit juice.

Speaking of fruit, you’ve seen a peeled apple turn brown. No real mystery,  just science – the brownish color is a result of the sugar in the fruit oxidizing or “carmelizing” when it’s exposed to air.

The problem with carmelizing on clothes, though, is that time and heat help set in those reappeared stains, and the more time that passes, and the more heat there is, the harder it becomes to ever get those stains out of the fabric.

Spills happen on the happiest of occasions.  But for there to be a happy ending to your Telltale Stain story, remember these three rules:

• Blot – don’t rub! – the stain when the spill happens.
• Even if you see no signs of the spill on your garment, as soon as possible, bring it in for dry cleaning!
• Tell all!  Make sure your dry cleaning professionals know exactly what happened.  That way, the stain can be pre-treated before the garment is exposed to any heat in the dry cleaning process.

The murderer thought he’d gotten away with the crime, but the Telltale Heart “reappeared”, revealing the terrible truth.

That’s why Classic Cleaners’ word to the wise is:

If YOU don’t tell the truth about your stains, your stains will tell the story for you.  And, by then, it might be too late to restore your special garment!

TV reality show In A Fix highlights do-it-yourself home repair disasters – moldings that don’t reach to corners, paint colors that bleed through, wallpaper run short one panel shy of a room – you name it.

At Classic Cleaners, our technicians see more than their share of do-it-yourself stain removals gone bad. There’s nothing wrong with trying to save money on dry cleaning bills.  The problem is that using the wrong chemical – or the wrong balance of chemicals – may mean permanently setting a stain instead of removing it.

Products typically recommended on do-it-yourself stain removal websites include:

• Borax powder                                                               
•  Cream of tartar and lemon juice paste
•  Rubbing alcohol
•  Baking soda
•  Club soda
•  Salt
•  Non-oily hairspray
•  Dish detergent
•  WD-40

The most dangerous do-it-yourself products of all are those claiming to take any stain out. We at Classic Cleaners have one word for those: NOT!  That’s because alkaline is needed to take out acid stains; acid is needed to take out alkaline stains.  You can’t have it both ways and achieve the desired neutral – a Ph of 7.

Mrs.CleanUSA.com’s.advice about removing permanent marker stains from carpet comes in three stages:

• Stage One: Use rubbing alcohol or hairspray, blotting up the ink with a white towel.
• Stage Two: Get advice from a professional carpet cleaner
• Stage Three: (last resort) Cut the stain our.  Cut clean carpet from an inconspicuous place such as a closet and glue it where the stained carpet was.

When it comes to articles of clothing you care about, we highly recommend going directly to Stage Two, turning the problem over to the professionals at Classic Cleaners!

 by Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

“Patriotism is at the heart of Girl Scouts” , according to Deana Potterf, Director of Communications for Girl Scouts of Central Indiana. Two years ago, the girl scouts in Junior Troop #2019 in Carmel adopted the 38th Military Police Company of the Indiana National Guard, then in the process of deploying from Camp Atterbury to Iraq. This year, for the second time, Troop #2019 held a Beanie Baby drive, sending the toys they collected to their adopted military unit to hand out to Iraqi children as a token of friendship.

Girl Scout Troup #2019's Beanie Baby Drive

Patriotism’s at the heart of Classic Cleaners as well. The Classic Cleaners store in the Village of West Clay serves as the donation site for Girl Scout Troop #2019 Beanie Baby drive, with Classic Cleaners partner Carl Arnold supplying funds to support the shipment of the toys to Iraq.

The U.S. flag that was presented to Classic Cleaners and to Carl Arnold is very special.  The flag was flown over Forward Operating Base Rustamiyah, Baghdad during a time of hostile fire. It “bears witness to the detainment and suppression of terrorist forces”.

Earlier this year, Classic Cleaners West Clay served as the collection site for Girl Scout Troop #2019’s Operation Cookie Drop.  The Girl Scout cookies sold through that program go to Camp Atterbury for the enjoyment of the thousands of soldiers who are processed and trained there each year, and who go on to serve all over the world.

Why does Classic Cleaners contribute to worthy organizations such as Dress For Success Indianapolis and Girl Scouts? Simple!  It’s our way of showing our appreciation to society and of giving back!

Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

One of our newest customers called with a question: Could we get A LOT of bubble gum out of her son’s baseball uniform?

Classic Cleaners District Manager Dee Godwin to the rescue!  The result: one very clean baseball uniform, one very happy customer, one very happy young baseball player.

Baseball jersey with bubble gum

Baseball jersey ready for the game - no more bubble gum!

Funny thing, while chewing gum goes all the way back to ancient Greece (Greeks chewed resin from the mastic tree) and Mayans (who chewed the sap of the sapodilla tree), bubble gum itself was discovered by accident in 1928.  Walter Diemer was experimenting with different gum recipes when his mixture began to form bubbles.  Diemer brought some of the gum to a grocery store to test the market, teaching the salespeople how to blow bubbles so that they could, in turn, teach the trick to customers.  All the gum sold in one day, and the rest, as they say, is bubble gum  history!

Each brand of bubble gum has its own unique formula.  But blowing bubbles, as Michael Russell explains in The History of Bubble Gum, has become a tradition with friends and families.

Bubble gum, though, can turn into a problem when it connects with hair or clothing. Ehow.com recommends applying ice directly onto the gum for about 15 minutes, or until the gum is frozen solid.  Sometimes, but not always, that allows the gum to be scraped off clothing or skin. 

             1st Rule of Gum: Watch where you sit . (Don’t you often wish others would watch where they spit?) 

             2nd Rule of Gum:  Scrap the scraping, which can leave marks and even tear fabrics.

For a “home run” in removing unwelcome substances and stains from your clothes, leave the job to the professionals at Classic Cleaners!

Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Sometimes you’ve got to take back in order to give, that’s all there is to it!

Dry cleaning plastic bags

One of the small but very important ways in which Classic Cleaners fulfills the dry cleaning industry’s highest standards of environmentally responsible practices is how we handle – bags.

It’s simple.  Plastic bags help keep clothes clean and fresh while they’re being transported from our plant to customers’  homes.  But, as the first dry cleaners in the Indianapolis area to receive Certified Environmental Drycleaner certification, we know throwing away those plastic bags isn’t good for the environment.

Some 89,000,000,000 plastics bags are used each year in the U.S.. According to Earth911.com, plastic bags are produced from natural gas.  When bags are recycled, the energy is available for new products, not only for bags, for products such as composite lumber and decking.  A five-year long study by the Ocean Conservency found that plastic bags make up 9% of the debris found along U.S. coasts.

We make it easy for our loyal customers to do the right thing, reminding them to return those plastic bags (and, wherever possible, hangers as well) to us by putting them into the cleaning bag along with their next order.  Classic Cleaners has contracted with a green recycling firm to turn that plastic into trash bags and other reusable items.

Our Classic Cleaners team has made a commitment to the environment.  We believe keeping our planet a safe place to be is every bit as important as producing quality cleaning. Plastic bag recycling is just a small part of that commitment.  We stay up-to-date on environment regulations of all sorts for proper waste handling and dry cleaning operating procedures and follow them all to the letter.

 At Classic Cleaners, we’re proud that we’ve never been cited for an environmental violation, and that we’ve never been required to clean up any of our sites.  You can bet, everyone on the Classic Cleaners team is proud of our “clean” environmental record!

Bags to give back, anyone?

Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

Dress For Success Indianapolis Clothing donations

More than seven years and 100,000 suits and blouses later, we’re proud to say Classic Cleaners’ partnership with Dress for Success Indianapolis has been nothing but successful .

The April 17th “Super Sort” at the Classic Cleaners Bash Street plant is just one aspect of the ongoing partnership between Classic Cleaners and Dress For Success Indianapolis. DFS Indianapolis staff members, volunteers, and interns gathered Saturday morning to help sort the donated clothing and prepare it for delivery to the Dress For Success boutique at 820 North Meridian.

Susie Fucik, Professional Women's Group Program Manager, Juanita Galvis, first time volunteer, Mehida Perez, volunteer

The mission of Dress For Success is “to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.”

Classic Cleaners contributes to DFS Indianapolis in several other ways as well :

• Super Sort is the culmination of Send One Suit Week, during which individuals at a local business, place of worship, or organization host a private drive.  These individuals lead an on-site collection with their co-workers, associates, family or friends to collect 1 suit, 1 blouse, and monetary donations from each person to benefit DFS Indianapolis.  For the fourth year, Classic Cleaners was a sponsor for the private drives by giving each donor a coupon for $10 off a $20 or more order of dry cleaning.
• Throughout the year, Classic Cleaners acts as a collection site, accepting interview-appropriate suits and blouses on hangers, cleaning donated garments as needed, then delivering them to the DFS Indianapolis Boutique at 820 N, Meridian. (Other items such as shoes, jewelry, purses, and accessories may be dropped off at  DFS Indianapolis during open clothing donation days.)  
       
• In August of each year, Classic Cleaners runs a special DFS Indianapolis promotion. For every dry cleaning order of $20 or more, $2 is donated to Dress For Success.  A check is presented to the organization at the DFS Indianapolis’ annual September fundraiser, “Stepping Out in Style”. In each of the the past two years, Classic Cleaners September donation was more than $13,000.

Why does Classic Cleaners contribute to worthy organizations like Dress For Success Indianapolis? Simple!  It’s our way of showing our appreciation to society and to being good citizens of the human family.

By Reb of the Classic Cleaners blog team

This is one of Classic Cleaners’ many fantastic dry cleaning locations in Indianapolis. Customers living in the Eagle Creek area or in Northwest Indianapolis may find it to be their favorite! It’s very conveniently located off I-465 (exit 21) on 71st. St., just inside the loop of the expressway.

Classic Cleaners
6335 Intech Commons Dr.
Indianapolis, IN 46278
(I-465 and 71st St.)

Phone
317-275-2244

Hours
Monday-Friday: 7:00 am-7:00 pm
Saturday: 8:30 am-4:30 pm

• Express drop-off service is available 24 hours a day

Tuesday Specials
Plain slacks and skirts $5.99
Plain business shirts (on hangers) $2.20

In addition to our convenient locations, Classic Cleaners offers a FREE home pickup and delivery area for all of your dry cleaning and laundry items! We believe we offer Indy’s most convenient dry cleaning and laundry options. Please visit us soon and enjoy the best!

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team

This is one of Classic Cleaners’ many great dry cleaning locations in Indianapolis. Customers living in the Castleton area or in other Indianapolis Northside areas may find it to be their most convenient Classic Cleaners store. This is also the location of Classic Cleaners’ main plant. It’s not located on a particularly busy street, but it’s actually highly accessible from 82nd St. from the south and 96th St. from the north.

Classic Cleaners
8641 Bash St.
Indianapolis, IN 46256
(East of Castleton Post Office)

Phone
317-845-5244

Hours
Monday-Friday: 7:00 am-7:00 pm
Saturday: 8:30 am-4:30 pm

Saturday Specials
Plain slacks and skirts $5.99
Plain business shirts (on hangers) $2.20

In addition to our convenient locations, Classic Cleaners offers a FREE home pickup and delivery area for all of your dry cleaning and laundry items! We believe we offer Indy’s most convenient dry cleaning and laundry options. Please visit us soon and enjoy the best!

–Matt
The Classic Cleaners Blog Team