Why Should I Bother Line-Drying My Laundry?

I first started line-drying my laundry when my son, Benjamin, was about 20 months old. It was the “green” thing to do, I knew. So twice a week, I would lug the basket outside and hang our laundry up on the makeshift clotheslines that my husband had put up for me.

I thought I would enjoy it. Really, I did. I like being outside, and I figured  I could use the time to pray. It’s not like you have to think to hang up clothes.

Then Benjamin discovered dirt. And how fun it was to throw on the freshly washed towels and sheets hanging up to dry. Subsequently I realized that air-drying clothing does nothing to get the lint out. I tried washing only lights together, then washing only towels together. After line-drying my laundry, I still ended up with obvious and hideous lint smears all over the dark-colored shirts and pants.

In the meantime, my solution to the dirt-throwing problem was simply to keep Benjamin inside the house while I hung up the laundry. Uh, huh. And listen to him scream at the window the whole time.

In utter frustration, I began using the dryer again on a full-time basis, praying that the green police wouldn’t come to my house and find me out.

T-shirts swinging in the breeze

This past summer, with Benjamin a little older, I thought I’d try line-drying again. I’d figured out that I could remove the lint off the dark clothes by running them on the air-fluff setting in the dryer for twenty minutes (which uses much less electricity than using warm/hot air for sixty minutes). And I hoped that Benjamin, being a little more mature, would refrain from the dirt-throwing.

He behaved slightly better, but now the heat and humidity conspired against my desire to be greener. I would be miserable and crabby by the time I finished hanging the laundry out to dry.

I was determined to find a solution, since I have three compelling reasons to line-dry my laundry and avoid the dryer.

1. If you only air-dry your clothes, and never use the dryer, your clothes and linens will last twice as long.
2. As J. Matthew Sleeth puts it in his book Serve God, Save the Planet, every kilowatt of coal-based electricity you use equals more pollution, which affects air quality–even for people halfway around the world who use no electricity.
3. Laundry that has hung outside on a clothesline smells delicious!

Finally, I got a hold of Ed Begley Jr.’s Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life. Among other simple green ideas, Ed and his wife hang their laundry on drying racks. Inside the house.

What brilliance! What absolute genius! I could hang up the laundry inside, and not have to deal with the heat and a mischievous toddler. (Hey, I’m a busy mom. I’m allowed to have occasional brain freezes.)

Unless I’m in a mood or feeling rushed, I still line-dry the sheets outside. But I now only run the dryer to get the lint off, and everything else gets hung up on hangers or on a drying rack in the upstairs bathroom. Yes, it takes more time than using the dryer. But you’d be surprised at how quickly the hanging up can go.

What is something you’re trying to do a little “greener” and searching for a solution that fits into your lifestyle ?

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Tagged as: air-drying, clothesline, drying clothes on a line, drying clothes on a rack, hanging clothes outside to dry, line-drying, line-drying laundry