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The monster machine in Jim and Adam Steele's dry cleaning store in the Northeast Heights is eating away at an old way of doing business.

It's making room for the future: a cleaner, greener one.

The machine, all 5 tons of it, is the only one of its kind in Albuquerque and one of 35 in the nation.

Its goal matches its size: Keep customers' clothes clean without making a big dent on the environment.

"I think we're going where the industry has to go," said Jim Steele, a former environmental engineer who opened Hangers Cleaners in July 2004. "In some form or another, it is the future."

Most of the nation's 34,000 commercial dry cleaners use a petroleum-based solvent or perchloroethylene, or perc for short, a synthetic solvent. These solvents remove oils without shrinking fabrics. However, the solvents over time can weaken or dissolve fabric glues and finishes, according to Real Simple magazine and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Perc is also a suspected carcinogen at very high doses and has a strong odor. Traditional dry cleaners must deal with environmental and safety regulations, like air quality permits, associated with the use of perc and petroleum.

The Steeles' machine, called the MICO2, uses carbon dioxide gas, a naturally occurring product that creates the fizz in sodas.

MICO2 was built by Micell Technologies in Raleigh, N.C. It uses a process first developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Steele said.

MICO2 stands floor to ceiling with tubes, pipes and tanks going every which way in a complicated dance of efficiency.

Open up the wash wheel at MICO2's center, and it looks much like your own washing machine at home.

But don't add Tide to this machine. It uses a special cleaning solution developed to work with the carbon dioxide gas.

This is how it works:

Up to 60 pounds of dirty clothes are placed in MICO2's rotating wash wheel. The door is closed and an air-tight seal is activated.

Carbon dioxide is a gas at 300 psi (pounds per square inch) at 100 degrees below zero. MICO2 compresses it to a liquid at 650 psi and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The wash wheel is filled about one-third full with about 4 ounces of the special detergent and the now-liquid carbon dioxide.

The detergents pull dirt away from the clothes and a dual filtration system captures the dirt and odors.

After the cleaning process is complete, the liquid carbon dioxide and detergents are pumped out of the wash wheel and a spin cycle takes any remnants of the carbon dioxide out of the clothes.

The clean clothes come out of the wash wheel cool to the touch.

The liquid carbon dioxide and detergent mixture is sent to the storage tank. The wash fluid is distilled, and the residues land in a bucket. The carbon dioxide is sent back to the storage tank.

"We recover about 95 percent of the carbon dioxide" to be used again, Steele said.

The EPA and other organizations are currently working to encourage more dry cleaners to use the MICO2 machines.

Steele said one drawback is the cost of the machine itself. At $150,000, the machine "doesn't fit into a ma and pa operation," Steele said.

Perc cleaning equipment can range from $40,000 to $65,000, according to the EPA. In addition, there's the capital cost for petroleum cleaning equipment with fire suppression systems and oxygen sensors that can range from $75,000 to $111,000, the EPA said.

MICO2 is "marginally more expensive," Steele said. "I've got to capitalize on this. But we don't have air-quality permit issues, and the only waste we have is detergent. We use around five to seven gallons a year."

On top of those benefits, Steele said he also doesn't generate enough residue from the distillation process for a hazardous materials team to pick up his waste.

"I need a 55-gallon drum to get them out here."

Perc and petroleum machines have a cycle time of about 70 minutes. MICO2's cycle is about 35 to 40 minutes, the EPA said.

And Steele maintains the machine saves water, too. "We have as much water use in a year as a single family household," he said.

But Steele is the first to admit that being green isn't what sells his services and keeps his shop operating.

"We are fairly priced for the labor we do," he said. "For the quality of work we do, we're right with everyone else. There is no green premium."

Steele said MICO2 processes around 60 percent of the clothes that are sent to the store to be laundered. Another 10 percent go through the "wet clean" process (laundered with plain water in computer-controlled washers) and 30 percent of the clothes, mostly shirts, are cleaned like standard laundry.

In addition to the MICO2 machine, Steele's two delivery trucks are bio-diesel, and he takes pride in his 15 full-time employees.

"I wanted a job where my staff is as important as my customers and the environment," Steele said.