ECO FRIENDLY CLOTHES DRYING

This post on eco friendly clothes drying is not about comparing Whirlpool to Maytag. It’s about the most energy efficient clothes dryer on the planet…the sun. To be sure, there are days when it’s raining or when fielding the latest health emergency or disaster around my house that I feel like dropping to my knees and sending up thanks to the Good Lord for my clothes dryer. But when I have time, I actually enjoy getting outdoors and communing with nature with a couple of clothespins stuck in my mouth.

When the weather is just right, laundry day is really not about saving the planet by practicing eco friendly clothes drying. Drying clothes in the sun is about a more easy, relaxed way of taking care of my family’s needs. You just can’t put an Energy Star rating on the anti-depressant benefits of stepping out the back door early in the morning knowing that later in the day you will fill your basket with fresh, sweet smelling clothes. On the rare day when the humidity is low, I can usually gather all three lines and have them folded and hung in the closets by lunch.

The only articles of clothing that I don’t like to line dry are our jeans. When hung on the clothesline to dry they feel too papery and rough and the worst case scenario is that I will have to iron them to remove wrinkles. Not having to heat up and use a steam iron makes the best case imaginable for shopping for the most energy efficient clothes dryer that is manmade!

IS ECO FRIENDLY CLOTHES DRYING FOR EVERYBODY?
Regardless of where you live, you can dry at least part of your laundry in an environmentally friendly fashion. It's true that you have to have a back yard of some size to handle a clothesline. But if you have a postage stamp sized yard, you can get a retractable or an umbrella clothesline. These compact clothes dryers are cheap as can be and may be the best choice for city dwellers. We live in the country and have a big yard so I have the old fashioned kind of clothesline like my grandmother had which was a monster sized eco friendly clothes dryer if one ever existed!


Speaking of my grandmother's clothesline, she had special boards to put under the lines at the halfway mark so that heavy items wouldn’t make the whole load sag to the ground. The vision in my mind of her sheets, towels and granddaddy’s work clothes blowing in the breeze are one of my favorite childhood memories long before the phrase, eco friendly, had ever been coined.