Letting it
All Hang Out
by Wendy Priesnitz
When I was a
child in the 1950s, I loved helping my mother hang out the laundry to dry. She
had a special window installed in the sun porch at the back of the house so
she could stay warm inside during the winter while easily reaching the
clothesline. My job was to hand her the clothes pegs and later to help fold. I
still remember the wonderfully fresh smell the sheets had…a scent that
lingered even when they were on my bed. I’ve been able to hang out my own
family’s laundry to dry occasionally since, but too often, we’ve lived in
houses where clotheslines were forbidden on aesthetic grounds or in
balcony-less apartments where clotheslines were impossible even if they had
been legal. But these days, concerned about global warming and the cost of
energy, we’re letting it all hang out, like hasn’t been seen in a
generation.
In fact, bans on clotheslines may be
going the way of cosmetic pesticides and cigarette smoking in public places.
There is even a “Right to Dry” activist movement that is trying to
establish clothesline rights. This laundry underground includes those frugal
folks who’ve always used a clothesline and are a bit befuddled as to what
all the fuss is about, people from countries where hanging out the laundry is
part of the culture, those who don’t like other people making up rules
regarding their lifestyle habits, and those who realize that foregoing a
clothes dryer is an easy adjustment to make in order to reduce the amount of
carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere.
Although these initiatives are springing
up spontaneously across North America (Europeans really never gave up the
clothesline) they are networked through an organization called Project
Laundry List, founded in New Hampshire in 1995 by a young lawyer named
Alexander Lee. Project Laundry List uses words, images and advocacy to educate
people about how simple lifestyle modifications – including air-drying
one’s clothes – reduce our dependence on environmentally and culturally
costly energy sources. The organization started when students at New
Hampshire’s Middlebury College, concerned about Hydro- Quebec’s plans for
major dam projects and the expansion of nuclear power, started to hang
political messages on a clothesline at protests. Now, its Right to Dry
Campaign encourages lawmakers to introduce Right to Dry legislation that would
prevent community covenants, landlord prohibitions and zoning laws that stop
people from using clotheslines. Its Stop the Ban! Campaign uses a public
airing of communities and landlords that prohibit clotheslines in order to
encourage their use. Project Laundry List has chapters across the U.S. and
Canada, in the U.K. and Asia.
Lee and his chapter volunteers are kept
busy these days advising sympathetic politicians on how to word and pass bills
that override clothesline bans. North Carolina, for instance, has passed a law
invalidating city or county limitations on “energy devices based on the use
of renewable resources.” Florida and Utah also have laws that prohibit
“state or local laws or regulations or private contracts from limiting the
ability of dwellers to erect and use clotheslines for the drying of
clothes.”
In Canada, the mayor of the Town of
Aurora, just north of Toronto, is pushing the provincial government to
consider whether clotheslines could be classified as a technology or service.
Phyllis Morris says the designation would allow her constituents to override
subdivision property agreements that prevent homeowners from hanging their
laundry out to dry. Her campaign has been endorsed by environment groups,
including the Conservation Council of Ontario and the World Wildlife Fund of
Canada. On the other hand, the Oak Bay Green Committee in British Columbia
cautions that in some areas – such as their Vancouver Island community –
there are “suburban myths” that perpetuate the idea of municipal bans on
clotheslines when they really don’t exist.
Those in favor of bans on clotheslines
say that environmental leanings have to be balanced against the desires of
those who find their neighbors’ blue jeans, undies and flannel nightgowns to
be unseemly, unsightly or both. However, those against the bans – including
Vermont Senator Richard McCormack – dismiss such concerns. He recently told
the Christian Science Monitor that amid growing concern about global warming,
governments have a responsibility to protect people’s right to voluntarily
conserve, if not actively support energy conservation.
The numbers tell the conservation story
clearly. Electric and gas dryers emit an average of 1,440 pounds of carbon
dioxide annually, or up to 10 percent of residential energy use. The website www.stopglobalwarming.org
reports that line drying your clothes in the spring and summer can prevent an
estimated 700 pounds of carbon dioxide per household from releasing into the
atmosphere.
This is the information that Project
Laundry List tries to communicate each April 19 on its annual Hang Out Your
Laundry Day. Handing out wooden clothespins, generating community discussion
about simple ways to save energy and providing basic information about local
energy sources are the three central activities of most Hang Out Your Laundry
Day events. Laundry is often used as a beautiful art form to attract public
attention. Statistics and sentiments are often painted on T-shirts and pants
to make the case for using a clothesline (e.g., “Hang Your Pants, Stop the
Nuke Plants”.) Now is a good time to gather together your friends and
neighbors and start planning for the 2008 Hang Out Your Laundry Day.
And who knows, maybe one day the law
might mandate that every home must have a clothesline installed!
-
Hang T-shirts
by the shoulders with an extra pin in the middle to prevent stretching.
-
Hang pants by
the bottom of the leg to speed up drying and fold the legs where you want
creases.
-
Fold sheets so
they billow in the wind.
-
Use extra pins
to ensure heavy items don’t blow away.
-
Hanging
clothes (especially diapers!) in direct sun is a great way to bleach them.
But be careful about drying black and navy clothing – or anything else
that will fade – in the sun.
-
To prevent
line-dried items from becoming stiff, add ˝ cup of vinegar to the washer
to soften them.
-
Although it
may seem counterproductive, tossing your towels in the dryer for just a
few minutes after they have dried on the line will make them softer... and
still save a lot of energy.
-
If you don’t
have trees or posts from which to hang a line, or have a small yard (or
laundry-intolerant friends or neighbors) try a collapsible “umbrella”
clothesline, which can be stored when not in use.
-
An indoor
drying rack is a good investment for inclement weather. Avoid raw wood,
which can leave marks and odors on your clothes.
-
Avoid drying
laundry indoors if your house has a moisture problem.
-
Before you
erect a clothesline, check with your condo or homeowners’ association
and local bylaw department. Hanging clothes outdoors is still banned in
some areas.
