LOS ANGELES — For more than 20 years, Monica’s Cleaners in South Los Angeles has been a staple in the community. Steve Vergara said his father Fausto Vergara Ponce at least made it feel that way to anyone who walked in.

“He always greeted them with a smile. He was always a very happy person,” Vergara said. “If anybody would come in with problems or if they had any situations, even in everyday life, they would always leave with a smile or laughing.”

Vergara said his father died two years ago from cancer. He suspects it was from working closely with commonly used toxic chemicals in the dry cleaning industry: perchloroethylene, known as PERC, and hydrocarbons. Lys Mendez with the California Air Resources Board said dry cleaners had until January to phase out the use of PERC for alternative options like nontoxic professional wet cleaning and less toxic hydrocarbon cleaning.

Vergara said he didn’t know a nontoxic option existed, noting that the chemicals had physical effects on his body, aside from a noxious odor.

“Your skin literally starts falling off," he said. "It’s definitely something that I was not too happy with. Ever since, knowing that and knowing that my dad was the one doing all the work and messing with it or having to touch it, I pretty much had myself do it instead of him."

One study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that those who worked with PERC and were exposed to other chemicals for five years or more had a higher risk of bladder, esophageal and cervical cancer. Lung cancer also accounted for the highest cause of death for dry-cleaner workers in the study.

Now, Vergara is having his family turn to another alternative: professional wet cleaning. The method uses a water-based detergent that is nontoxic and non-smog forming, according to CARB.

In June, the EPA proposed a ban on all consumer uses of perchloroethylene nationwide, except for industrial and commercial uses in petrochemical manufacturing, vapor degreasing to make aerospace parts and engines and more. The proposal also comes with a 10-year phase-out plan for dry-cleaning uses nationwide.

The EPA determined that PERC “presents unreasonable risk to health, driven by risks associated with exposure to the chemical by workers, occupational non-users (workers nearby but not in direct contact with this chemical), consumers, and those in close proximity to a consumer use.”

Martha Dina Argüello is with Physicians For Social Responsibility Los Angeles, an environmental justice nonprofit. She’s been advocating against the use of PERC in California. Now, she wants state regulators to create more awareness for professional wet cleaning to help others in the industry use a nontoxic option.

“Regulatory agencies, who knew wet cleaning was safer and cleaner, left the door open for this other technology, which is a hydrofluorocarbon,” she said. “The better, safer, cleaner technology that requires no regulation got pushed out of the market by a dirtier one.”

It’s a switch Vergara wishes his dad could have witnessed.

“The simple fact that we know that we are going to be having a better, healthier life, that’s really all I can ask for,” he said.