According to our friends at the Laundress, many clothes labeled “dry clean” can be washed at home, and there are plenty of online resources to help you determine how to wash certain fabrics yourself. For example, light-colored silks can be washed by hand in cold water using light soap and then air-dried. Wool and cashmere sweaters can be sorted by color and washed by hand or in the machine’s delicate cycle and then laid flat to dry.The final option is to carry on dry cleaning, hold the PERC, with an important caveat: Eco-friendly dry cleaners substitute PERC with other agents to clean clothes. Some of those cleaning agents, including silicon-based Siloxane D5 and petroleum-based hydrocarbon solvents, may not be as toxic as PERC, but there is evidence to suggest that they may have their own health and environmental impacts. Find a GreenEarth® cleaner near you In addition to its chemical impact, dry cleaning also produces packaging waste resulting from disposable hangers and plastic bags. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 3.5 billion wire hangers end up in landfills each year . One way to reduce your dry cleaning footprint is to bring your hangers back to your dry cleaner for reuse. You’ll be diverting these hangers from the landfill, and your dry cleaner will appreciate the opportunity to reuse them. There are also a number of dry cleaners across the country that provide hanger recycling. When it comes to plastic,an estimated 300 million pounds of single-used dry cleaning plastic bags are thrown away each year. However, most types of plastic bags are accepted at recycling centers and retailers across the country , including, very often, local grocery stores and retailers including Target. You can also just skip the plastic bag altogether either by buying a reusable dry cleaning bag, such as those available from The Green Garmento or by asking your dry cleaner not to package your clean clothes in plastic. Next: Where Your Clothes Go After You Stop Wearing Them