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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Green Living / Green Community

Unplug your clothes dryer: Save energy, reduce carbon emissions

Posted by Linda Taylor on Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 10:11 AM

click to enlarge clothesline.jpg

Last month, I decided to unplug my clothes dryer and line dry – or over a rack, chair, or railing.

Every few years, the Pew Research Center asks about 1,000 Americans what they think about various appliances. Three years ago, 83 percent responded that a clothes dryer was a necessity. Now one in every three Americans sees this appliance as an unnecessary extravagance requiring a huge commitment of energy to run. In many households, the dryer is the third most energy-hungry appliance after the refrigerator and washer. Air-drying your clothes can reduce the average household’s carbon footprint by 2,400 pounds a year.

There is also the added benefit of taking better care of your favorite clothes. All that lint you scoop out of a dryer’s lint trap after each load is evidence of your wardrobe wearing away. The dryer shortens the life of your clothing by over-drying items and thinning them out. From a safety perspective, you eliminate the risk that your dryer could start a fire. According to a report by FEMA, clothes dryer vents can become clogged with lint, and cause more than 15,000 house fires a year.

A wonderful option is to hang clothes to dry outside. A clothesline enables you to spend some of your laundry time enjoying the outdoors; your clothes smell - oh so fresh, and drying in the sunshine helps to naturally disinfect clothes and to gently bleach whites. Even if you are not ready to completely swear off your dryer, you can become a dryer reductionist - just tumble your clothes for 5-10 minutes to shake out the wrinkles and then hang them to dry.

click to enlarge clothesline2.jpg
Households that do commit to hanging laundry outside in their yard or balcony may discover an unlikely obstacle – their homeowner’s association. Unfortunately many community associations prohibit clotheslines and other efforts to let the sunshine dry clothes. Project Laundry List is a nonprofit that has helped to fight anti-clothesline ordinances in many neighborhoods, often by passing city or state legislation that invalidates such ordinances. To find out which cities and states have the “right to dry” and to sign a petition for a national law – and to urge the First Family to line dry their clothes occasionally on the White House lawn – visit Right to Dry. Whether you hope to hang up your laundry inside or outside, you can share tips and strategies at Project Laundry List’s blog, The Clothes Peg.

Dry, unplugged!

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