One thing that we try to keep in mind when planning our sustainable future is to avoid thinking “How can we do what we do now, but do it in a sustainable way?”. Initially, this is the temptation: to continue the status quo with less impact. It’s like buying a Prius when we should really just forget car-based transportation and ride bicycles instead.
What we’re looking for is a shift in ideas. How can we take this task, turn it on its head, and do it differently?
Recently, I’ve tried to figure out how we might wash clothes without resorting to using traditional washer-and-dryer appliances. They’re a wasteful use of energy and a complicated set of products controlled by computer circuitry. The initial costs are expensive and so is the maintenance. For us, this is unacceptable.
So how can this process be simplified without going back to the old, backbreaking, washboard technique?
I found three simple products that, when combined, will allow us to do laundry in a timely, efficient manner with minimal effort, environmental impact, energy use, or cost. Please note that we have not tried any of these. It is just a sample of the type of solutions we are looking for.
The “Breathing” Mobile Washer - $17. Yes, it looks like a plunger but the design actually pumps water through your clothes with ease. User reviews say that only a few minutes of agitation are needed to do a large load of laundry. It’s cheap, easy, and obvious.
Bio-Kleen Cold Water Laundry Liquid - $0.12 per oz. This clothes cleaning liquid is environmentally friendly, is not tested on animals, and does not contain any bizarre fragrances, dyes, or toxic chemicals. That means we can recycle the wastewater and use it for irrigation. It is also available in 5-gallon buckets, which fits our requirement that any consumables must be available in bulk. Each load requires only 1 oz of cleaner; at a current price of $77 for 5 gallons (640 oz) that’s $0.12 per load and it will last us at least 6 years.
Spin Dryer - $135. It’s a centrifuge for your laundry. With a spin rate of 3200 rpm, clothes are nearly dry in less than 3 minutes. The only thing left to do is hang them outside on a clothesline for an hour or two (sunlight is also a good sterilizer).
In the end, we may decide on something different, but compared to the complexity and price of a normal washer and dryer, solutions like these just make sense.
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