laundry

I am not sure how much energy a clothes dryer uses in one session. Creating heat and a good spin can’t be cheap on the carbon scale. We  are not living ‘off the grid’ here but our environmental footprint has been considerably lightened simply by air-drying our clothes. I must admit, I thought this would be a great inconvenience and would get me into a Little House on the Prairie mindset. Not only am I not inconvenienced, I feel more modernized. As anyone who is not in a state of selfish denial knows, the Earth is not healthy because of the harmful things we humans do to it. Green is the future if we are responsible now.

For the first week I could not translate the Russian on the washing machine and had no idea which combination of buttons and dials to use. I thought the washer was a piece of crap because the settings I was trying would not spin. The clothes were all sopping wet when I pulled them out so I climbed in the shower to wring out each dress, sweater, and pair of jeans. It was a workout. A very sad one.

I know now to turn the dial for the spin cycle is after the wash.  I wash one load of clothes per day, usually at night. Clothes go in the washer, clothes come off the line and then newly clean clothes are hung to dry. By the next evening, everything is dry. Laundry is part of the daily routine and takes only 15 minutes of my time. Previously, in the States, we would have a ‘laundry day.’  One day a week consumed by laundry. We would be stuck at home waiting for the washer or dryer so we could load, transfer, fold and repeat.

My new phrase for saying something is slow is ‘It’s like watching clothes air-dry’.

I am surprised (or to use Chloe’s new favorite word ‘flabbergasted’) by how much more efficient my laundry routine is with air drying. Believe me, with an adventurous 3-year old and an 8-month old in cloth diapers, we generate an impressive amount of laundry. When we return to America we will purchase a drying rack. The time I’ll save will be spent doing something fun and the money I’ll save will pay for dinner out. Exchanging laundry day for date night is trading up in my book.

On a weekday, the city is covered with fresh laundry. This Sunday picture does not adequately show the laundry holding potential of this building.

It is surprising to us that there are no laundromats, at least we have not seen any.