When Going Green Goes Stinky
Do you ever get tired of everyone touting their eco successes? Ooooooo….look at me…I’ve managed to reduce my footprint ever so effortlessly…and made a pie while I was at it. If instead, you would love to hear about the utter failures, the sorrow, the misery…well today is your lucky day.
I have tried, sincerely tried, to increase the amount of clothes that I dry outside the dryer to both reduce energy waste and extend the clothes lifetime. Well…that effort is almost totally in the can for the rest of the summer. For those of you not fortunate enough to live in NYC, I have a little secret for you… NYC summers are F***ING MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGY. Is 113% humidity even possible? NOTHING dries and therefore ends up with a fate worse than death in my book…milllllllllldew. Nothing more pleasurable than a nice refreshing shower topped off with a nice rub down with a reeking towel.
So yes…I will pull out the bras and bathing suits…but beyond that…sorry Earth…you are SOL. If you want me to stop using the dryer you had better find a way of sucking some of this moisture out of the city. Deal? My people will be waiting to hear from your people.
I want so badly to put out a clothesline, but I’m worried about the humidity too. I can’t walk the 30 feet to the mailbox without breaking into a sweat. And showers? Twice a day in the summer. It’s a trade off - 1) we can bike to work, sweat like crazy and end up taking two showers a day; or 2) we can take the car to work, spew out CO2, waste money on gas and get no exercise in the process. We’ve chosen number one.
When its muggy here in Filthadelphia I use the dryer. The clothesline is indoors and it starts in the bedroom where we have our AC…so we get a bit of cooling action when its muggy. Although it hasn’t been too bad so far…unless the cloud of doom made me completely oblivious to the weather.
I have a portable washing machine that happens to have a very powerful spinner. If I spin dry the clothes, they usually dry within 6 hours on a rod in my bathroom, and I live in NJ near a river. That system has worked well for me.
It has been brutal here…and we haven’t even hit July yet.
Amanda…unfortunately I don’t have a whole lotta say in the machines I use. We have a laundry room in the building, not personal machines. They seem to spin pretty well but even so…with 100% humidity nothing dries. The spring, winter and fall are fine. Just the soup we call summer.
We’re having the same problem in Boston. I managed to line dry a load the other day, but we’re starting to run out of clothes. I’m hoping I can do one tomorrow before a thunderstorm hits.
Is there no wind to help with the drying? I live in Mississippi where the humidity is high most of the time. Some days we drink the air instead of breath it. And yet, I do have a clothesline, and I dry all my clothes on it. I use a drying rack in the house too, and so far, nothing has mildewed. Keep trying, the energy savings are worth it.
Hawaii, always humid! I hang on line all day, maybe overnight, and then if needed put in dryer for ten minutes to finish the job.
If I had an outside line things might be easier. Apartment life doesn’t quite offer that. I could just see the looks on my neighbors’ faces if I tried to string a line between buildings. They would seriously rather die…well…have me die.
Hawaii state lawmakers recently passed a law that clothes lines can not be banned in gated or other communities.
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