State-of-the-art laundering gets garments clean enough for strictest environments

By Hank Hogan

Clothes make the man, the saying goes. The modern technological twist on that adage is that dirty garments can unmake the cleanroom. Since many of these garments are too expensive to be used only once, they have to be laundered. Now cleanroom operators in the Midwest have a new option, a recently completed facility that uses state-of-the-art techniques to get garments clean enough to help fabricate semiconductors, make pharmaceuticals, and paint cars.

Cintas Corp. (Cincinnati, OH) just opened up a new cleanroom laundry facility in Westland, MI. The 4,000-sq. ft. site has cleanrooms ranging in cleanliness from ISO Class 3 to 7, with different areas separated by process isolation controls. This arrangement is critically important, says Cintas corporate quality assurance manager Jan Eudy.

“You have a linear flow through your washing, drying, folding, and packaging process. But you want to be able to handle more than one customer’s garments at one point in time. So we have different process areas, depending upon the types of garments and the customer requirements,” she explains.

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