Dempsey’s Environmental Impact Statement
Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply is committed to a sustainable future through environmental stewardship and conservation of the earth’s natural resources. Our goals are to reduce the direct and indirect impact of our company through leadership by example, recycling textiles and conserving resources. With these goals, Dempsey has become a leader in both the textile rental industry and our local community in preserving our environment.

Leadership by Example: Dempsey Leads the Way

Energy-Smart Business Honor Roll
In February 2011, PPL Electric Utilities entered Dempsey into its E-power® Energy-Smart Business Honor Roll. With this award, PPL recognized Dempsey's recent energy-saving efforts in its production facilities. "This organization has demonstrated the kind of awareness and commitment that will lead our communities to better energy and environmental practices today and into the future," writes David DeCampli, President, PPL Electric Utilities Corporation. www.pplelectric.com/HonorRoll/

U.S. EPA Sustainability Partnership
In December 2010, Dempsey Uniform & Linen Supply, Inc. joined the US EPA Sustainability Partnership Program. The Sustainability Partnership (SP) is an EPA Region 3 initiative to facilitate environmental sustainability at major organizations in the mid-Atlantic region through a collaborative effort.  By sharing expertise within programs such as WaterSense, Energy Star and WasteWise, etc., EPA has proven that working with industry, institutions and governments can produce significant results in the reduction of waste generation, natural resource usage, and energy consumption.  Our collaborative efforts can reduce environmental footprints and often result in cost savings to the organization as well!  www.epa.gov/reg3wcmd/spp/partners.html

Green Powerhouse Award™ (Green Business of the Year)
In 2009, Dempsey won the first-ever “Green Powerhouse Award” from the Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal. Judge Jennifer Porter of Workforce Wayne explained: “These awards recognize some of the first organizations in our region taking voluntary action toward green sustainability. This sustainability is about changing behaviors, and to do this we need people like those at Dempsey to show the way.”

Industry Environmental Leadership
PJ Dempsey (President) currently serves as Chairman of the TRSA (Textile Rental Services Association) Environmental Committee, which drives industry involvement in Laundry ESP® and sustainable laundering practices. Mark Lewis (Corporate Sales Manager) has taken a leadership role as Chairman of the Clean & Green Task Force of the TRSA for 2 years creating an educational DVD and publishing articles on the topic.

Both Dempsey and Lewis have spoken before audiences of TRSA members nationwide on the benefits and methodologies of Clean & Green Improvements, education and marketing. The Clean & Green DVD was shown as part of an MBA study and thesis program at Pepperdine University helping to further educate college students about the industrial impact of clean and green processes.

Local Environmental Leadership
Dempsey works closely with environmentally conscious customers, like Sanofi Pasteur, with whom Dempsey participated in their Long Term Sustainability project. In addition, Dempsey has worked with local schools to educate children on how businesses can be more “green” in ways that benefit both the business and the environment.

Laundry ESP®
Dempsey is a founding member of Laundry ESP (Environmental Stewardship Program), the textile rental industry’s voluntary environmental program, which has been praised by the EPA for its success in protecting the environment. Results include the reduction of waste water pollutants (40%), the substitution of environmentally friendly wash chemicals the reduction of water (12.6%) and energy usage (11%) in laundering.

On-site Waste Water Pre-Treatment System
Going beyond local regulations, Dempsey has installed an onsite wastewater treatment plant that effectively removes contaminants such as oils, grease and heavy metals. The treated water exceeds all local discharge limits and gives Dempsey the option to reuse up to 20% of the water. The resulting wastewater is readily biodegradable (easy for local POTW to treat) and the solid discharge is non-toxic.

Environmental Regulations
Dempsey meets or exceeds all local regulations. Dempsey regularly monitors environmental compliance at all of our active processing plants to assure that we meet all applicable federal, state and local regulations for:

• Air
• Wastewater
• Storm water management
• Spill prevention
• Solid waste disposal

Recycling Textiles: Textile Reuse Reduces Solid Waste.
Providing clean, reusable textiles is inherently sustainable, and should be attractive in a world still dominated by disposable goods. Dempsey’s textile rental product line reduces solid waste in comparison to disposable alternatives in the following ways:

• Cloth Cleaning Towels. Paper Towels generate 4x more solid waste than cloth towels. (IL 12/91)
• Mops. Wet Mop: 1 Rental = 36 Disposable (ppt); Dry Mop: 1 rental = 186 disposable (ppt)
• Patient Gowns. Paper examination gowns generate almost 4x more solid waste than cloth. (IL 12/91) 1 doctors gowns 20 patients per day for 1 year (“ppt), which generates ½ ton of garbage.
• Mats. 1 rental = 10 disposable, 9x more landfill waste (ppt)
• Wipers. Paper wipers generate from 4x to 10x more solid waste than cloth shop towels (depending on the soil of the job). (IL 12/91)

The EPA even recommends that restaurants utilize "reusable utensils, dinnerware, napkins and placemats" as a key tactic for Source Reduction. (*Decision-maker's Guide to Solid Waste Mgt, Vol. II" University of Wisconsin & EPA, 1995)

Conserving Resources: Efficient Laundering Conserves
Commercial laundering conserves vital natural resources, like water and energy, in comparison to self-laundering. Dempsey’s laundering process lead the commercial laundry industry in conservation methods and technology.

Commercial Laundering Conserves Resources
Using an industrial laundry process is much better for the environment than washing and drying items in smaller loads at home or on an unregulated business site where untreated wastewater is discharged through the local sanitary sewer system.

In addition, self laundering uses 2.5x more water and 1.6x more energy per pound of laundry. (TRSA Clean Green.ppt / 2008). Proportionally (to energy, assuming its from the 50% of plants that are coal fired) less pounds of CO2.

A very specific study looked at the home laundering of uniforms. Home laundering of uniforms uses 2.8x more water and 2x more energy than industrial laundering. (IL 12/91) If 50% of the 22 million uniform wearers in the U.S. had their uniforms laundered commercially (now its about 33%), almost 100 million gallons of water would be saved each week. Over a year, the water savings increase to almost 5 billion gallons.

Dempsey’s Laundering Maximizes Conservation

Energy Reduction

Heat Reclaimer & Boiler Stack Economizer
Dempsey employs a sophisticated wastewater heat recovery system captures the heat from the process wastewater to preheat the incoming fresh water using a shell and tube heat reclaimer; this process can effectively preheat that water to within 5ºF of the dirty wastewater stream, thereby recovering up to 60% of the water heating energy required. Preheated fresh water then travels through a boiler stack economizer where boiler exhaust comes in direct contact with the incoming water and further preheats it. The hot gases are normally cooled to within 10 to 15 degrees of the incoming water temperature and amounts to a 10-20% energy recovery of the on-line boiler load. This system allows Dempsey to conserve natural gas that would otherwise be necessary to heat the incoming water.

Finishing Equipment
The finishing equipment and process, adopted from successful European operations, use significantly less natural gas than older systems. In addition, steps were taken to ensure all electric motors are soft-start or variable speed and rated high efficiency, allowing Dempsey to conserve electricity.

Natural & Efficient Lighting
Dempsey’s physical facility incorporates “daylighting” using large windows and skylights, high efficiency lighting, a reflective white rubber membrane roof, high r-value insulation and computer-controlled heating and cooling equipment, allowing Dempsey to conserve electricity for lighting.

In 2011, Dempsey improved the efficiency of its lighting by replacing 200 high bay halogen lights with high efficiency T8 fluorescent lights. The T8 fixtures require about half the energy of the fixtures that were replaced.

Comprehensive Utility Management System
Dempsey's utility management system enables extensive metering and intelligent analysis of water, gas and electric data to minimize utility costs and optimize equipment utilization.

Delivery Efficiency. (We deliver “GREEN!”)
Dempsey utilizes Roadnet UPS routing technology for route path optimization. This allows Dempsey to reduce miles driven, which means less fuel consumption and a smaller carbon footprint.

Dempsey also utilizes cutting-edge fleet management and optimization technology to minimize our carbon footprint. This system allows Dempsey to optimize fuel economy by reducing engine idle time, reducing speed, and by optimizing driving techniques such as rapid acceleration. With real-time alerts from the truck's engine computer, Dempsey is also able to identify vehicles that are not operating as efficiently as possible in between scheduled maintenance.

Water Reduction

Continuous Batch Tunnel Washer (CBT)
Dempsey CBT Washers are designed to reduce water consumption by 50 percent compared to conventional systems through engineering efficiencies and water reuse, allowing Dempsey to conserve over 650,000 gallons of water per week.

Waste Water Pre-Treatment System
Dempsey’s sophisticated, on-site Waste Water Pre-Treatment System, not only pre-treats water before discharge, but also recycles a portion of the water, allowing Dempsey to conserve over 112,000 gallons of water per week.

Material Reduction

Hanger Reuse
In an effort to reduce the dependence on natural iron resources and to preserve space in our landfills, Dempsey has intensified efforts to re-use at least 65% to 70% of garment hangers through its on-site customer reclaim programs. In a partnership with Allied Services, people with disabilities help reclaim used hangers for reuse. As of 2010, this program had diverted 608,000 lbs from landfills and avoided the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions of 168 cars annually.

Material Recycling
Dempsey's production recycling program includes wood, plastic, cardboard, paper and metal. On average this program diverts over 30 tons of material each year from landfills for recycling.