New Ross dry cleaning business Cleaned4You looks to become more sustainable and age-friendly

Local family-run Cleaned4You is a New Ross dry cleaners that has been in business for the past 56 years. Managed by Deirdre and Pete Caulfield since 1984, the business has grown from being a small shop and workspace as Emerald Cleaners in Quay Street before relocating to an expanded premises on Michael Street in 2019.

At the minute, Pete and Deirdre are striving to certify the business as an age-friendly outlet and service.

The duo has been collaborating with Wexford County Council to identify three targeted developments, including improving the mobility access of their entrances by adapting them, and also highlighting specific services tailored to older customers.

Thirdly, they have a new staff member to deal with specific enquiries from older customers to help them complete their orders.

“We strive to grow our business alongside our interactions within our community every day despite the current challenges and ever-changing face of the district,” said Deirdre.

And with sustainability high on the agenda for many businesses now, Cleaned4You has also embarked on a journey to ‘green’ its operations by changing its cleaning system to an eco-cleaning process.

“It’s an essential move to adhere to new climate targets and legislation requirements too,” Deirdre said.

“Regular customers and the new younger market have shown over the course of the Covid years and, statistically, even now with tighter budgets, they continue to support local and champion green when making choices about what they buy and what service they use.”

The company has also pledged with Irish Water to take part in its initiative for retail businesses around water conservation.

“Networking and keeping up with sector developments has seen us make savings on chemical use too, which has achieved a 90 percent measured reduction at this stage and we are striving to improve on this further,” said Pete. “We completed a wide-ranging energy audit to track and reduce our power usage and for peace of mind we installed new gas cylinders to replace tanks we had.”

He said that collaborations with other bigger businesses in Wexford have also “proven advantageous”, especially with the move to a more circular economy.

“We make an ongoing effort to source our products from within the region as much as possible.”