Most dry cleaners make use of a chemical called perchloroethylene when cleaning clothes. While the use of this chemical is good for your clothes that need to be dry cleaned, it's not so good for the environment as perchloroethylene is considered to be an environmental and health hazard by the EPA.

If you want to help the environment, but you still have clothes that you want cleaned by a dry cleaner, all is not lost. There are environmentally friendly ways to perform dry cleaning. The EPA has a list of dry cleaners that make use of processes which avoid the use of chemicals that are not friendly to the environment or to the health of people.