Looking for ways to save money and help the environment? Going green can definitely do both, and revolutionizing your laundry routine can be a good place to start.
Did you know that each load of laundry you hang instead of machine drying “saves 5 pounds of coal from being burned back at the electricity plant” (Sleeth p.12)? And if you wash your clothes in cold water, you save energy by not using so much hot water.
We have washed our clothes in cold water for years (except for a rare hot wash here and there as needed), but we just put up a clothesline this summer, and we’ve been thoroughly enjoying it for so many reasons.
1- It puts manual labor back into our lives, which we find both fun and beneficial, and helps save money on the electric bill. (Not to mention… no need to pay gym fees when your life has some exercise built into everyday life).
2- It brings our family closer together as we divvy up who is washing, hanging, pulling down (the kids love to pull down the laundry), and putting away the laundry.
3- It helps reduce our impact on the environment, which ultimately also helps reduce our negative impact on those less fortunate all around the world.
4- It reduces common consumer lifestyle stresses brought on by over-dependence on labor-saving devices. Example: our dryer actually seems to have gone kaput, and wow, is it freeing not to have the stress of needing to buy a new one! Our ~25 year old microwave went kaput recently, too; we can do without it just fine.
Now to get our indoor line-drying system and routines in place for winter – and the rainy days of next year’s outdoor drying season. One step at a time. 🙂
Though I haven’t explored it thoroughly, this link shared by my cousin looks like a good resource for laundry ideas: www.laundrylist.org
And here’s the Sleeth book quoted above: The Gospel According to the Earth
Can you tell more about your indoor system? We’d need that more days than not here in the pacific nw 🙂
We’re still working on it, but we just started with a nylon cord and 3 large eye hooks drilled into the rafters in our basement. Super simple. We’ll likely get a 4th and maybe 5th hook to run a couple more lines (zig-zag from beam to beam) and get more drying space. The challenge is that things don’t dry as quickly in the basement as they do outside, and we’re running into laundry backlog when the next load is ready to go up but things on the line are not dry yet. I’m thinking that adding a couple more lines should help with that. And to preserve space in the basement, we’re hanging large items like sheets and towels on the railing upstairs – diaper covers too, but we’ve always hung diaper covers over the railing so that’s not a change for us.
a friend of mine hangs things like shirts on hangers and then on her basement clothesline…thus each takes up a couple inches of clothesline space, vs. a couple of feet…you may already be doing this, but it hadn’t occurred to me, so thought I’d pass it along! 🙂
and thanks for the info on what you’re doing indoors. I may just have to do that…
That’s a good idea. Hadn’t thought of that – thanks! Getting a couple more eye hooks tomorrow to string a few more lines…
Hi Lacey
I put shirts and pants on hanger and put them on the shower rod in the bathroom. That way the heat in your home helps them to dry quicker. Also socks and undies can be draped on a hanger or just tossed over the shower rod.
This is the time of year when I miss sunny Cali and the 365 days of unhindered laundry hanging!
Nice! Yeah, northeast winter not so good for outdoor drying… 🙁