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