Are You In "Hot Water" with Laundry?

Dave Rapaport from Seventh Generation explains to Melissa McGinnis from Greenopolis TV that hot water is one of the biggest users of energy when it comes to doing laundry. He recommends washing laundry in cold water and line drying as much as possible to conserve resources and energy use.

Many people are surprised to learn that the biggest point of energy use in laundry detergent is not actually making the laundry detergent- it's when people use the laundry detergent to wash their clothes; the hot water- the energy used in heating the water. So one of the biggest things that you can do to save energy when doing laundry is to use cold water.

Another major source of energy use in doing laundry is actually drying clothes. Dryers use some 15% of the energy used in a household. So, just going back to using the clothesline, or there's now high-tech laundry racks that you can use indoors that fit a load or multiple loads on in a small-contained area. Just air-drying them and letting them evaporate is a great way to save energy. And by the way, you also save your clothes. That lint that is in the lint filter in your dryer, that's your clothes that are just kind of wearing down each time you dry them and building up on the lint filter. So, your clothes will last longer and you'll be doing a great thing for the planet. If you've got good weather and you can use an outdoor clothesline, then it's wonderful to be outside, and doing a chore outside rather than inside - the way the clothes feel and smell fresh when they're lawn-dried is really something you can't duplicate in a dryer in your house!