Ideas to Save the Planet #1: Air Dry Your Clothes

In case stopping global warming seems too big a job for any person, we’re beginning a series that will intersperse with regular posts here at BBD called “Ideas to Save the Planet.”

These will highlight one idea per post that readers can incorporate into daily life to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and slow (and eventually stop) global warming. If we’re able to begin stringing some of these ideas together, soon we can make significant progress as individuals towards changing from a lifestyle that is part of the problem to one that’s part of the solution.

Many of these ideas will come from stopglobalwarming.org, where readers are encouraged to skip ahead and implement them all.

Idea #1: Air Dry Your Clothes

Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer. Save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $75 per year.

This is an idea that works better for people outside New York City (where there’s space to hang a line), but even here, it’s possible to dry an item or two of clothing in the bathroom that you’ve washed for the next day.

The stunning thing is to realize that over a year, just hanging items out to dry on a line will save so much CO2.

That was easy, right?

Comments

[ChelseaH]

It is actually quite possible to line dry your clothes if you live indoors as there are all sorts of apartment-sized foldable drying racks made just for city-dwellers.

I'm a student at Pomona College in Claremont, California and recently spent a good amount of time looking into the various clothesline and drying rack options since Pomona is going to purchase some for student use and I wanted to make sure we purchased the best available option.

In my research, I was shocked to find that there is NO good website explaining all the different clotheslines and drying rack options, so I made my own! It's a wiki page on the Tip the Planet sustainable living wiki that ANYONE CAN EDIT. You can check it out here: http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing

I'm trying to spread the word so that the site becomes a clearing house for drying rack information, and people have to spend less time scouring the web for the best products. Have a look, share it with your friends, and by all means add your wisdom!

Take care,
Chelsea

[billkav]

Great Wiki page, Chelsea.

Who knew there were so many ways to dry clothes?

I hope anyone looking for info on clotheslines, drying racks, etc. will check it out.

http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing

[x-ray fluorescence]

yeah great ideas.But how can it possible to save planet by drying our clothes????..