Washers and dryers use lots of energy and water to get our cloths nice and clean.
However, doing laundry consumes a great amount of water and energy. Here are some steps you can take to minimize the impact that cleaning your cloths can do to the environment. These tips may help you save some money. Going green helps you save more green!!
- Try using an environmentally friendly laundry detergent.
There are many things that can make a better for the environment. Buying a concentrated detergents helps benefit the environment because it takes less resources to create these products. Also, try finding a laundry detergent that does not use harmful chemicals like Alkylphenol ethoxylates or APE. Exposure to APEs can hurt your immune system.
- Use cold water when washing your clothes.
Heating up the water for the accounts for 90% of the energy that a washer uses. By using cold water cuts down the energy needed to clean your cloths. Manufactures of laundry detergent offer cold water activated laundry detergent. Using this will help you reduce your energy costs.
- Wear the same pair of clothing many times.
If you wear clothes more then once you will have less cloths to clean. Since you are cleaning less clothes you are consuming less resources. However, somethings like underwear you should wear only once.
- Use of front loading washing machine.
Newer washing machine are more efficient then their top loading cousins. According to Energy Star, older washing machines use 30-35 gallons of water per load. However, newer washing machines use 10-15 gallons of water per load. Newer washing machines use around a third of the water it takes to complete a load. Treehugger.com says that an average family dose over 400 loads of laundry a year. If a 30 gallon washing machine does 400 loads at 30 gallons per load then the and efficient washing machine use 12,000 gallons per year. If you use a washing machine that uses 10 gallon per load and you do 400 loads of laundry you will only use 4,000 gallons of water per year. Just by switching machines you will save 8,000 gallons of water per year!
- Air dry your clothes
If you don't use your dryer then you wont use any energy. Using the power of the sun you can dry your cloths for no cost. When you use the sun to dry your clothes they also last longer. When clothes are drying in the dryer they are moving and that causes them to wear out faster. Since your clothes aren’t moving when they’re being air dried they will last longer.
Tips and Data come from Treehugger.com
No comments:
Post a Comment