Doing your laundry may just seem like a simple chore–okay, well maybe it is not so simple for everyone–but what you may not know is how much is wasted when one runs a load of laundry. All we see is a water going in, the machine churning, and water being spun out. I have not tried to calculate the amount of water that our machine uses, but I have a feeling that it is a lot more than I think it is.
If people changed the way they did their laundry, we could make a big difference in this world. It takes so much energy that is used to heat the wash water and to run the dry cycle and we do not usually think too much about this fact. However, if were all more aware, then we could start to reduce the carbon footprint that’s associated with our clothing.
One of the easiest ways to change your habits is to dry your clothes on a line rather than in the machine and to use the cold water setting rather than the hot water setting when hot water is not needed. The dryer actually comes in as number two on the household energy hog list and by not using it, you can save more than $70 per year in energy bills. So let us take the dryer out of the equation.
The average household does about 400 loads of laundry each year–coming in at about 13,500 gallons of water per year, according to Energy Star. If you still have one of those older machines (my family had one up until about 2 weeks ago), you should really think about switching to an Energy-Start qualified top-loading machine. Why? Well, you an save as much as 7,000 gallons of water per year. This type of machine can save you $500 in operating costs over its lifetime (about 11 years). In short, you will most likely end up having a machine that pays for itself over the course of its useful life.
Doing your laundry in an efficient manner is a household chore you can afford to spend your money on because in the long run, you will save money and our environment.
