By Julie Webb
What’s the carbon footprint of a single load of laundry? Washed at 40⁰C (104⁰F) and tumbled dried, it rings in at 2.4kg per a load of laundry. Dryers alone can use anywhere from 1,800 to 5,000 watts of electricity per an hour depending on their efficiency, or in a more useful unit: from 1.8 to 5 kilowatt hours (KwHr). With 1.5 pounds of carbon being emitted per a kilowatt hour generated from a coal-fire power plant, it is easy to see how quickly things get out of hand.
Now try to imagine this in a college dorm—where the washers and driers are running practically non-stop. What can you do to reduce your impact? It’s surprisingly not hard to make a good dent in your laundries carbon footprint. The bonus? It will not only save the environment, but some money, and your clothes as well. So, when washing your clothes, opt for the lower temperatures. Most modern washers use around 27 gallons of water per a load—older models use upwards of 40 gallons. That is a lot of water to heat up, and it takes a lot of energy to heat it. Opting for lower temperatures can help reduce the carbon footprint of your laundry day, but can also help reduce color-fading in your clothes.
More-so than washers, the real culprit are dryers. Dryers tend to be the most expensive part of doing your laundry and the machines with longest wait time—not to mention not that effective. How many times have you pulled out your laundry to find it still thoroughly damp? Then you have to pay up for another cycle, and another couple pounds of CO2 get pumped out into the air. Dryers are not doing any favors for your clothes either. Synthetics come out full of static, anything elastic will not stand up to repeated drying, clothes eventually become worn and tatty, edges fray, and delicates get destroyed. Thankfully there’s an easy solution that’s not only ecofriendly, but extremely in expensive (maybe even free), and overall better for your clothes. The answer is simple:
Get a drying rack.
It’s a onetime investment, and a cheap one at that. It fits in your apartment, in your dorm room, really any small space you can think of. You’ll save money for never having to pay for dryers, you’ll save your clothes, and you’ll save the environment – one (laundry) day at a time.
Sources:
Clark, Duncan, and Mike Berners-Lee. “What’s The Carbon Footprint Of … A Load Of Laundry?”. the Guardian. N. p., 2010. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
“Reducing The Environmental Impact Of Clothes Dryers | Green Living Tips”.Greenlivingtips.com. N. p., 2012. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.
“Clothes Lines – A Greener Way To Dry | Green Living Tips”. Greenlivingtips.com. N. p., 2008. Web. 22 Mar. 2016.