Laundry

How much laundry do you have? How many times do you do laundry?

What a boring subject, getting our clothes, sheets and all sorts of fabrics cleaned. But wait, its something we all in one way or another are dealing with and doing this greener has a big impact on our energy consumption.

I remember several years ago reading an article that went into quite some details how to do your laundry by and. Not that I am advocating that. The article was so amazing in describing exactly how to do this with not more work involved than when using a laundry machine. If I ever find this article in my stacks of archived paper news clips, I’ll be sharing that.

Everyone’s situation is different. A large family is different than, a single person or a couple. If one has younger kids or teenagers or living with parents, friends or room mates it is different than if you have a work where you need a lot of extra laundry. If you have your own laundry machine or share it or use the laundry service, if you have hanging space or not – all those things make a large difference in what one can do to reduce the amount of time and effort as well energy usage and environmental impact.

What I am going to describe is geared towards singles and couples that have their own laundry equipment and some space for hanging. Some of these things are applicable to most everyone I think. Specifically not covered is the situation involving diapers. That is a whole other situation all together and I am not qualified to talk about that, due to lack of personal experience.

There are a number of things one can do to be more green in regards to laundry:

• Wash less often. This can be usually easily be done by ensuring to only do full loads and collect laundry in a hamper until it is a fully load.
  Some things can be washed less often. Like sweaters, pants or even shirts worn only for a short period of time, can be hung in fresh air and sun to air out instead or wearing a things more than once, again pants, sweaters, shirts.
• Whenever the laundry washer breaks replace it with a low energy one, which often seems to be a front loader instead of a top loader.
• Use the appropriate settings to reduce amount of water, cycles and rinses. Instead of hot use warm or cold water setting.
• There are a number of natural/organic soaps, laundry discs, biodegradable liquids all without bleach or artificial chemicals. You might need to experiment a bit to find out what works for your equipment and water (hardiness). Maybe you are adventurous and want to create your own green cleaning agent?
• Drying is one of the main energy consuming activities in households when using a dryer. There are some alternatives to that.
  – The good old cloth line, which for me, makes me feel nostalgic, reminding me of the time as a kid, when my parents or gran parents used that. So, whenever possible hang laundry outside on a close line or rack. Putting white things out during sun shine has also some bleaching effect.
  – If there is no space outside available, take hangers and hang them inside. What we do often is to hang the hangers on the ridges of the trim of some of our doors as well as on the bar that holds the shower curtain, pushing it to one side. Hang it up in the evening, by morning it is usually dry. This works even for socks, underwear, bras, etc. Of course you don’t do this when you have invited your friends for a stylish party – well, or maybe it would be fun?
  – Another option is to get a fold-able rack that fits in the bath tub or shower space or can be installed on the wall and pulled out.

Besides using less energy some of the tips should also reduce your utility bill significantly. A side effect that, when designed for it, can be achieved with many of the greener lifestyle changes or green businesses and economy.