Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Who wants to hang their laundry out to dry with me?

It's summer in Minnesota. I am outside and simply not sewing very much. I am still thinking about my carbon footprint. It's been a warm summer here.  And the temperatures that Portland Oregon just experienced are nightmarish. Climate change is here and we have to change our behavior.  

As you know, we have been making a concerted effort to reduce the amount of laundry we do.  When I wrote a blog post on that topic a few months ago, I said that I would probably continue to use our dryer.  But there was a day three or four weeks ago when we were running our air conditioner and we had a load of laundry in our washer. I looked at what our electricity generation and consumption was and I just couldn't turn on the dryer. 

I took the wooden rack we use inside outside and hung up the laundry. Earlier this week, I was hanging our laundry and my spouse came outside and said he had just been listening to Minnesota Public Radio and a speaker said we need to get of our *sses now and do something about climate change so it was a good thing we were hanging up our clothes. I have been hanging sheets inside on chairs since I don't want pollen on them. 

We have had to change our rhythm of laundry, often starting the washer at night so we could hang them in the morning and doing wash on warmer days, but since we are still working at home, it has worked out. 

There are a lot of benefits to washing clothes on cold and hang drying them from carbon savings to clothes lasting longer.  Who is going to join me in hang drying at least some of their clothes?