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10/01/07
Elizabeth Elephant suggested this challenge and received
11 votes before it was promoted.
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10/12/08
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Sheets to the Wind Featured on May 16, 2008
Challenge
Use a clothesline for a few loads of laundry this month. Let evaporation dry your clothes instead of electricity!
Individual Result
By line-drying 1 laundry load per week, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by 18.8 lbs after one month.
Rally Impact
1302 people have reduced CO2 emissions by 11.66 tons by completing this challenge so far. That's equal to turning off the electricity of 10 homes for about 1 month!
Challenge Details
Once upon a time, laundry smelled “spring fresh” or smelled “like a summer day” not because these smells were added to laundry detergent but because the laundry had actually been hung outside to dry in the fresh, spring or summer air and sunshine. Think about it. Would you rather have popcorn enhanced with butter-smelling “flavor” or would you rather have popcorn with real melted butter? Exactly. Give us the real deal every time. Line-drying your clothes happens to be the real deal. And it also makes a visible statement of your commitment to CO2 reduction.
This Featured Challenge again comes from our Challenge Workshop. This one was suggested by Change for 2008 and has received 11 positive votes. This idea was also suggested by roy and skye 585_23221. Their suggestions have received 7 positive votes each. Well done!
The Carbon Connection
Your clothes dryer is one of the biggest contributors to global warming in your house, just after your refrigerator. The average family of four does 4 to 6 loads of laundry each week. For an electric dryer, that accounts for about 100 kWh of electricity used each month at a cost of $100 to $180 each year. All told, 88 million clothes dryers in the United States account for up to 6% of domestic electricity usage.
The carbon connection for drying clothes is pretty simple to understand. Every time you run a load of laundry through the dryer, you are using energy. Electric dryers use electricity to heat the air that dries your laundry; gas dryers get their heat by burning natural gas. Both types of dryers use electricity to tumble the laundry. Electricity comes from a power plant which is probably powered by burning coal, oil, or natural gas. The bottom line is that we want to reduce the burning of those fossil fuels, either at the power plant or in your dryer. The less fuel you burn, the fewer pounds of carbon dioxide you release into Earth’s atmosphere.
Getting It Done
Need help meeting this Challenge? Here are a few simple suggestions:
- Start small. There’s no need to go out and buy a $250 Swiss-made, aluminum outdoor drying rack to test whether line-drying works for you. String a clothesline between two available trees or poles. Be sure to make the line tight enough to support the weight of wet clothes. If it isn’t, you’ll find out soon enough.
- Maybe you’re too young to have helped your grandmother hang laundry. Or perhaps you haven’t seen enough late 1950s television. But there’s actually a “right way” to line dry your laundry. Check out this article at the Housekeeping Channel for tips on doing the job right. For instance, you should hang shirts and socks upside down so that any stretching from being line dried isn’t on the part of the shirt or sock that shows.
- Many homeowners are not allowed to have outside clotheslines because they live in housing developments with neighborhood associations that have rules against line-drying. Check the rules where you live. And if you find that it’s time to fight those silly rules, you won’t be alone. Efforts are underway in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut to pass “right to dry” legislation. For more on the controversy, read these articles: Boston Globe: Clothesline Rule Creates Flap and Time: Fighting for the Right to Dry.
- Remember that sunlight can lighten colors. On the one hand, isn’t that a great and natural way to bleach those sheets and white shirts? On the other hand, perhaps you have clothes you don’t want to have fade in the sun. Hang those in the shade or indoors. And be sure not to hang clothes under tree branches or power/telephone lines or other places where birds hang out. Birds do what birds do. And you don’t want them doing it on your clean clothes.
- If you’re looking to replace your washing machine, get a front-loading model. Those use less water. They also leave a lot less water in your laundry, which will make laundry easier to line-dry.
Have you managed to make line drying clothes work for you? Do you have any stories you would like to share about how to work with neighborhood associations looking to ban line-drying? Do you have an ingenious design for stringing a clothesline in a small yard or city apartment? Please share your thoughts, methods, or even “post cool photos” in the Challenge Discussion section below.
Rules of the Challenge
This Challenge asks you to line-dry one load of laundry per week for the next 4 weeks. (Line-dry can mean drying clothes on a rack. It doesn’t just mean a clothesline.) Since we’re assuming you do two loads of laundry a week, that’s means line-drying about half of your total laundry. By line-drying one load of laundry each week, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by 4.7 lbs for the week, and by 18.8 lbs for the month. This Challenge lasts for one month and is repeatable.
If you have a family, we know that you’re probably laughing at the idea of ever having only two loads of laundry a week. When you stop laughing we still want you to take this Challenge! If they aren’t signed up already, we suggest that your family members join Carbonrally. Then they can take credit for the loads of their laundry that gets line-dried this month. A family of four line-drying 4 loads of laundry per week can rack up some serious CO2 reductions. Time to get a bigger basket.
Learn More
New York Times: To Fight Global Warming, Some Hang a Clothesline
Mr. Electricity: Saving on Clothes Dryer Costs
Project Laundry List
Real Green Goods: Indoor and outdoor drying racks, clothespins, etc.
See the Math
Care to see how we got our numbers? Let’s look at the known or estimated numbers and our assumptions:
- An electric dryer uses an average of between 3.5 and 4 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per load. We will use the higher number. That includes energy needed to heat the dryer and tumble the clothes. At 1.55 pounds of CO2 released per kWh of electricity generate, each load is responsible for releasing 6.2 pounds of CO2.
- A gas dryer uses an average of 0.22 therms of natural gas per load to heat the dryer. (A therm is about 100 cubic feet of gas.) At 11 pounds of CO2 released per therm of natural gas burned, each load releases 2.42 pounds of CO2. The gas dryer also uses 0.5 kWh of electricity per load to tumble the clothes. So the total CO2 released per load dried in a gas dryer is 2.42 pounds for the natural gas plus another 0.78 pounds from the electricity. We’ll round this off to 3.2 pounds of CO2 per load.
- Since we don’t know which type of dryer you are using, we will average the values for the electric and gas dryers. That average is 4.7 pounds of CO2 per load.
Be proud of your clothesline. Remember that having a clothesline is a visible statement of your commitment to preventing climate change. So talk to your neighbors about it. Explain why you’ve decided to line-dry your laundry. You could be the cool, retro trend-setter who starts it all in your neighborhood. Rally retro! And keep it dry.
Discuss Sheets to the Wind:
In all seasons this is a great thing to do! I have a family of four and have figured out that I save close to $50 a month hanging our families laundry. Outside in the Spring/Summer and near the Woodstove in the Autumn and Winter. Actually, the woodstove not only dries our clothes but cooks our chili/stew/pizza/bread/ask me how (all Vegitarian) and heats our home! We hardly use the dryer or the oven for that matter in the colder months.
Okay – everyone does not have a backyard or whatever to hang their clothes. And nor is every day that you need to do laundry sunny. SO…I was thinking…in a kitchen or basement, hang up a rope. I did this today and hung up both loads of laundry easily. Not only are you not using electricity, but you’re also avoiding dryer-sheets…and I have heard those are terrible for our environment. Good luck to everyone!
every since i was little my mother has done this. though everyone thinks and tells us we look stupid, it’s them not thinking about the environment! i use my washer, but the dryer is just there, as in to just use for fast drying, but in the sun, at least the clothes wont shrink like crazy!
We have already started this as a result of a broken dryer! The new one is up and running, but this should be a breeze since we’re already in the habit!
Been doing this for years, and after our hurricane, my line broke. Darn, had to get a new one with poles, instead of between two trees! Gotta go get the clothes out of the washer now!
I already do this, so this is easy. :)
I have 2 clothes drying racks and extra hangers to hang clothes to dry in one of my empty closets. When they’re done drying I put everything away. I do this inside my apartment so I don’t have to worry so much about my clothes being “crunchy” or screwed up from the sun or if it rains (and etc).
To be honest, i don’t see what’s wrong with hanging your clothes! I’ve only used the dryer once or twice in my life…the sun is our natural resource and truly…it doesn’t cost us anything!
This is an easy challenge for me and i hope it is for everyone else
I got a retractable clothesline (15 bucks at lowes.) It works great. Holds about a load of laundry at a time.. (Sears has one with 5 lines in the same system but it is also more than twice the price of this one..) The only complaint I have for line drying is that the the towels are crispy, not soft. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make..
I’ve been doing this for awhile and for all you fellow band merch wear-ers it really perserves your band tees. Worn band tees look cool but not if they are only 5 months old and already starting to fall apart. We all know that unsigned bands choose to get shirts printed on crappier tees to save money which is fine but turning them inside out when you wash them and then hanging them up to dry is a sure way to keep your favs still intact. I still wear my Otep tee from a tour in 02 with Moke and Rob still in the picture. It looks worn but there are no holes. Anyways happy hunting everyone.
I had my line removed a few years ago because it was a ‘cotton’ one and had begun marking the clothes. It was the end of the clothesline season here and I forgot to replace it after the sun came out again (six months of winter in NWPA). I finally did replace it with a plastic coated wire one a few weeks ago and, with only two of us here, I’ve not used it MUCH, but it has made a difference. I don’t like how the underclothes and towels feel tho, so I do toss them in the dryer with a damp cloth for a FEW minutes just to fluff them. They come out softer even tho I use fabric softener in every load.. tho I’m not certain my husband does! I’m not complaining TOO loudly tho, because he DOES laundry. I know most men don’t.
I am currently a college student and have made it my goal to purchase a drying rack before I head back to school in the fall. However, does anyone have any suggestions for how to prevent line dried towels from smelling sour? This is the one thing holding me back from going completely dryer-independent.
i rent an apartment and couldn’t hang my clothes outside.So i hang them in the bathroom or living room. By the way, i find out my clothes are much slowly damaged caused by overheating since i quit using electric dryer.
I do this pretty regularly, so it’s an easy “challenge”. Not to mention the memories it brings back. I can remember the hours spent hanging clothes on the line and bringing them back in. Watching the sky carefully so I could dash out and get the clothes off the line before it rained. I still love the feel of putting on a pair of jeans that have dried in the sun!
I read that stiffness is from using too much soap, but I haven’t had issues since starting to use the “natural” detergents (store brand stuff, usually). I am proud to say I’ve only used the drier twice (rain) since starting the challenge. :)
I have air dried four loads now, and this is a tough one for me. I have to confess that I’m doing it to my husband’s clothes instead of my own, because I don’t like how stiff they feel.
My family always does this. :} so it’s easy :D
For those of you wondering how to beat stiffness, the only way I know of is to “fluff” them in the dryer for about five minutes. I know that this isn’t as good as completely doing away with the dryer, but five minutes is better than drying the whole load!
My family does this alot! I had no idea the dryer put out so much CO2! I love line drying more than the dryer, the clothes just seem so fresh!
My family does this alot! I had no idea the dryer put out so much CO2! I love line drying more than the dryer, the clothes just seem so fresh!
Not only does this work very well for create a carbon friendly enviroment, but it also helps those soft blankets and sweatshirts from becoming all ‘pilly’ and smells very nice when I bring a load inside!
This is a way of life now – we use the dryer less than 90 minutes a month keeping track via an old stopwatch and journaling any dryer time used so we can offset it via other things (shortening shower time, handwashing dishes, etc). My children’s friends noticed and are now asking their parents about line-drying and using drying racks!
my family has actually never used a dryer. we hang our clothes in the basement/porch of our house. This isn’t actually a challenge for me, i just wanted to see how much energy i was saving.
This seemed like a better idea before I knew we would have one of our wettest, rainiest Iowa summers ever! But I’m holding steadfast. I line-dry on racks in a screened-in backporch. Only problem now is cats that can’t resist yanking on dangling items. Am now using the dryer maybe once every 2-3 weeks, compared to 5-6 times/week before.
I’ve had a problem with my towels and socks coming out really hard. Any suggestions?
my family always do this! :]]
Very easy for us to do so far! I’m on week 3 of no dryer use!
I can only promise to clothesline my sheets, shirts, pants…! I will not however attempt to clothesline my panties and bras..and shorts and tank tops! (lotsa perverts here, they might steal it!)
awesome challenge. i always clothesline :P
OK, this was MUCH easier than I expected. I planned to do one load a week but instead have done EVERY load on the line. I haven’t used the dryer since I accepted the challenge.
Living in a windy city, I do have trouble with tearing of the clothes at points where the pins are. To avoid this, I hang tops on their hangers and hang the hangers on the line.
The only problem is my dog always tries to eat our laundry. I guess the way it flaps in the wind calls to her.
We just installed a clothes line above the shower. It’s small but it will keep us from having to dry at least 1 load of laundry a week.
There are NO scented dryer sheets that can compare with what the good Mother gives for free.
And talk about a great scent, hang your sheets out in the winter and let them freeze dry (“sublimate,” for all my fellow nerds). You’ll never smell them better anywhere.
My mother claimed that clothes lasted longer if they were line dried. Clothes get ”...all beat up…” in a dryer. OK, its not scientific…But my mother DID say so… :-)
And for julybaby…As long as its not raining, you can most certainly hang your clothes outside to dry.
WW
We are a family of five that line dries everything. At least 15 loads a week. How do I figure that into this challenge?
My mom doesn’t have a dryer, so she either dries them on a clothesline in the backyard or takes it to the laundrymat.
my abuela always drys the clothes on a line. and she lives with my aunt and her family, so she does all the laundry. with five people living in one house she is constantly doing laundry and she hangs them to dry everyday.
i’ve been wanting to try it but i’ve had school so i haven’t had time, but now that schools out and im going to be home most of the day i’m going to be responsible for the laundry and i will hang dry them everyday!
I always dry my clothes on a line. It’s global friendly and is less of a hassle.
every time i do the laundry i ALWAYS hang the clothes outside. and if its raining ill hang them in side where i can find room.
I already dry my clothes on dryers in my apartment. :)
Too bad my neighborhood doesn’t allow clotheslines.):
this is so easy ,especially since my stepdad is a “save money freak ” !!!
drying clothes is so easy! and it cut down on the electric bill too! =]
Can you dry stuff on the line when it is cloudy outside?
well i can say that my dryer is broken and i always hang my clothes outside! yay me! =]]
This is a really good challenge. I’ve been drying my clothes on the line for a few months now. Its a really smart thing to do.
This challege is wonderfull! It should be easy because we do that everyday. That’s only because most of my clothes sherik in the dryer.
normally my house does 3 loads of laundry a day now we’re starting to line dry them :)
Currently, we wash three loads a week, and line-dry two of them, sometimes all of them, whenever the conditions are dry and windy.
i do it in the house several times a week already
Always did this to an extent, now we use our dryer for less than an hour a month (we set a timer and are meticulously honest about it). Friends were skeptical but won them over with hugely reduced electric bills. Here in the TX panhandle we need all the moisture inside we can get. We are able to dry entire loads in under a day, and an added bonus is the whole house smells so clean—invokes fond memories of summers spent at my grandparents where they were apparantly light years ahead of the game (composting, recycling and re-using, using less, and being mindful of what they did choose to use/consume).
IF YOU WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD FROM GLOBAL WARMING DO A CHALLENGE
They say nothing’s free but letting the wind and sun dry your clothes on a clothes line comes about as close as it gets. Personally I love the gently faded look the sun gives to some of my colored T-shirts and jeans which I purposely leave hanging in the sun a little longer. Some retail stores charge big bucks for that look. If there is something you don’t want to fade hang it in a garage or a room with airflow. The crisp feel of my clothes is wonderful. Only the towels might I consider a little stiff but nothing a little vinegar in the rinse cycle combined with a quick 2-5 minute tumble in the dryer on low heat won’t fix.
Signed up on this site just today. Interesting site.
I have been doing this for more than 6-8 months now.
I do not use a clothes line but use 4 plastic chairs at home to dry clothes. I generally keep the chairs near the window that gets some sun.
The use of hangers is pretty handy. Hang all clotes on the hangers, leave them in either the laundry room or the closet – just doesnt matter. In about 15hrs all are dry.
Happy drying.
Laundry is the one household chore I love and hanging them outside is the best. I haven’t done it in a long time due to the loss of my line. I am going out to get a new line tomorrow and hang it up so I can face the challenge and get back to something I love to do.
i have been drying my laundry on a clothesline for over 30 years
Back home all we ever did was line dry our clothes, but now that I’m in college and living in a house with 30 million other people, I find it difficult to do so. Not to mention, when I hang my clothes out to dry, I have to be right there to watch them otherwise someone will steal them right out of our backyard! It’s a shame that others make it so difficult to simply dry one’s own clothes!
I know a lot of people (including my father) will find this challenge less than challenging because you already line-dry your clothes (bravo to you). Here’s to those of us who are used to washing our clothes at night before we go to bed and throwing them in the dryer on our way to work. This is a legit challenge for me (and others like me, I’m sure) because we’ll have to make new habits (and break old ones). Good luck – to all of us!
We started doing quite a bit of line drying last summer. I love the way the clothes smell. I didn’t like how stiff the clothes were, but a quick (2 or 3 minutes) low or no heat tumble takes care of that. We don’t use fabric softener, so maybe that’s the problem for me. We just moved to a new house and are planning where to put in the clothes line now that the weather is improving.
i grew up with clotheslines—we had solar power and never used a dryer.
now, i own an LG high efficiency dryer. i will return to clotheslines as well, as the warm summer sun dries clothing even more quickly and efficiently than my LG.
I installed clotheslines in the rafters of my basement two years ago. I took cable staples and tied knots on the ends of the clothesline. I then pounded the lines in to the cross joists and it has held up no problem. I found that using clothespins leaves marks on the clothes, so it’s probably best to just hang them over the line. I haven’t used the dryer since (except for an “emergency” or two).
In the 40 years I have been doing laundry,I never use a dryer.
My wife and I have never owned a dryer. We had an extremely wet April (rained 20+ days) and my wife and I almost bought one but we were able to hold off and keep wearing either wet or stinky clothes until it dried up.
Due to square footage constraints (hate those!), I don’t own a washer or dryer; instead I take my laundry to the corner where it gets washed for $1.00/pound. If they spoke English, I would ask them to dry my clothing on a line, but…
I’m so good! I’m doing that all ready! so not really a challenge for me ;-) Especially in california, the weather is often very good and I like the moment I have to hang the clean laundry. I relax and I like the smell in the garden.
Rack drying works great…especially for all those clothing with spandex now. It not only saves on the drying, but also prolongs the life of your clothing and “undergarments”.
It’s not allowed to hang clothes outside to dry.I do have a drying wrack though where I hang some clothes that I wash with hands.I will sure use it more often now!
Our Electric Dryer gave up the ghost 22 years ago. I have line dried everything since. I have an umbrella dryer from the Netherlands that I bought from Real Goods about 10 years ago. Since I live in sunny Columbus Ohio- motto- “fewer cloudless days than Seattle” I also hang clothes in the basement. One of the side effects is that clothes and linens last so much longer. I have had the same bath towels for 20 years, underwear lasts 5 years, regular clothes last so long I am desperate to get rid of them. If you hang carefully most things do not need ironing, and stiff towels can be softened with a little massage before folding. If you are a novice, try hanging out sheets, underwear, socks, pajamas, dish towels out first before progressing to the whole wash.
I live in a condo so I cannot hang out my clothes to dry. Instead, I have a clothes drying rack that I have been using for quite some time. I’ve been using it for one load a week, and now with this challenge, I will try using it even more.
Here in Sydney (Australia) most people dry their clothes on a clothesline. Clotheslines are a feature of a typical aussie backyard along with a sand pit and a trampoline! Clothes not only smell better from being dried in the sun but they are also naturally sanitised. We actually don’t even own a tumble dryer so our living room resmebles a commercial laundromat when it is raining.
I’m going out right now and put up my clothes line. Since it’s been so hot, I did put a few things out, but now is the time to put the rope up so I will hang more clothes out more often. The stiff towels also act as a loofa after showering. :-)
I just staretd line drying a few weeks ago after reading an article about how much CO2 the dryer generates, and how much power the dryer uses. I admit that I do still use the dryer for about 5 minutes (permanent press cycle with cool down) just to fluff up my clothes and to make them less stiff (sheets & towels get fully dried on the clothes line) cutting my dryer usage down to about 10 minutes per week from about an hour and a half – 2 hours per week that it was drying everything in the dryer.
I’ve been amazed at how quickly the clothes dry outside vs. in the dryer. It also seems as though the fragrance from the detergent last longer in the fabric with line drying vs. the dryer…My only challenge now that summer is here in Florida is getting everything washed & dried before our afternoon thunderstorms… ;)
My mom line-dryed everything. I never knew what the “dryer” was for until I moved out to the East Coast from sunny southern California. It’s not easy line drying in snow and rain, and there’s always some kind of weather here! We bought a house that has a line system already (it was one of the selling features for me). It’s so much easier to line dry: the clothes are less soft but they don’t need ironing, they fold as if they were starched already, they are brighter from the sun and my favorite—they don’t shrink!!
Same here. I’ve been line drying at least for the past 5 years now, and I feel guilty not to do so living in so CA. (clothes will dry even if you leave them in the washing machine!!) For those who’ve been thinking about purchasing a new drying rack, don’t get wooden ones ——- they’ll leave ugly yellow marks on your clothes!
This challenge is no challenge for me as I have been drying clothes outside since childhood. Like Roy, I use clothes racks in the winter to add moisture to my house. Love these easy challenges!
I just installed a 5-line retractable clothesline within the past three weeks. I’m able to dry over half of our 6-loads per week laundry pile using it. And because it’s retractable, I don’t expect our neighbors to complain much about it (we do have a restrictive covenant about using clotheslines). So far, so good.
We’ve been drying our clothes on the line for 10 months now. In the winter we use an indoor line which doubles as a humidifier. Once it warms up, we do use an outdoor aluminum framed clothesline contraption. Not the $250 Swiss made model, but around $40. It can hold 3 loads of laundry.
Great challenge, and easy. Have been line drying for the past ten years. I AVOID ALL IRONING by giving “ironables” (all shirts, trousers, jackets, tablecloths) a mass-drying for 2 minutes in my clothes dryer on Low or Air setting after washing--this removes all wrinkles-then immediately hang those items on hangers to dry, buttoning top shirt buttons to maximize on neatness and stretching seams where necessary. [I am assuming 2-minutes’ worth of machine-drying my ironables is far better eco than hours of electricity running the iron, plus saving me my time doing the ironing!] In a dry climate such as ours in so. CA, drying items inside the house can also provide needed interior moisture and has a cooling effect. And yes, in winter it is a bigger challenge, with less sun or cold temperatures, but once you start line drying, it becomes habit. Consider stiff towels a new sort of massage! Found very cost-effective and sturdy plastic clothes pins at Ikea: 50 pieces for $1.99.
Whenever I hang clothes on the line to dry, I am always taken back many years ago when my mother was doing the same thing. I have this mental image of her, sheets blowing in the wind, and a few extra clothepins in her mouth. My actions seem to connnect me to her. Sort of like sharing the “wisdom of the ages” kind of thing.
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