Posted by Roxanne Hawn | Posted in Entirely Off Topic | Posted on 15-10-2009
Today, I’m taking part in Blog Action Day. The topic for 2009 is Climate Change, so instead of our usual fido fodder, let’s talk about the Right to Dry Movement, where people fight for the ability to use common sense in their energy saving efforts. In this case, the right to use the sun and wind to dry their clothes. Yep, we’re talking clotheslines.
I learned a lot about clothesline usage while researching my piece for September/October 2009 issue of Natural Home magazine called Fight for Your Right to Dry. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a MAJOR clothesline user. It’s one of my best sources of energy savings and budget cutting. Since I’ve eschewed the dryer, our energy usage has decreased by upwards of 200 kilowatts per month.
Yet, cities/towns, covenant-controlled communities, and even landlords often ban the use of clotheslines, drying racks, and the like because people consider them unsightly or even (not kidding) dangerous.
The debate spans individual and property rights, issues involving economics and class, and in my mind … energy usage and its relationship to climate change. The New York Times covered this subject of clotheslines recently, as states try to overrule local bans. Imagine the uproar if, as some proponents hope, a national law prohibited the prohibition of clotheslines.
Luxury or Necessity?
An April 2009 report from Pew Research shows economic pressure changing necessities into luxuries. This includes clothes dryers, whose status as a necessity fell by 17 percentage points in the U.S. in three years (from 83% to 66%). Dryer saturation in many European nations measures just 3-5%.
Dryers really aren’t necessary. Even in cold climates, clothes will dry … thanks to sublimation, where a solid converts to a gas without going through a liquid stage.
Is it fun to hang out clothes in the winds and freezing temps? Nope. But, I do it anyway.
Would I rather my clothes and linens not be a little stiff? Sure, but after a few minutes of wear or use, they soften up.
Snobbery, Pure and Simple
If you saw this behind my home, would it make you believe I’m poor? Do you instantly think I must live in a low-income neighborhood? Would you fear for your property values, as so many opponents do? Would you wonder if my dryer died? Would it frustrate you into shooting me? (Seriously, a man died over a clothesline battle with a neighbor in Mississippi. The story is included in an upcoming documentary called “Drying for Freedom.”)
Or, like me, do you think it’s a savvy environmental and budgetary decision?
Living in a rural community, I guess, gives us more freedom. So much so, that after eight years up here, I cannot imagine living in a covenant-controlled situation, where everything from paint colors to landscaping is dictated.
Covenants are the new SUVs.
They’re the latest energy guzzling giants that focus only on little fiefdoms (and the over-involved, self-absorbed people who rule them) rather than how such modern “conveniences” impact the planet. I’m not saying everyone MUST use clotheslines, but those who want to should be allowed.
Combine bans on common sense energy saving like clotheslines with requirements for high-maintenance, high-water-usage yards, like so many covenants do, and you’ve got the the perfect recipe for climate change.
No need to pre-heat the planet, baby. It’s already warm.
“This is a symptom of a society that is not worrying about the big things,” says Alexander Lee, founder of Project Laundry List, a nonprofit fighting for the right to dry. “What’s uglier? A pair of underwear hanging out your window that scandalizes you, or the water lapping at your doorstep because of climate change?”
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And, for the record, I spare my neighbors the embarrassment and use a small drying rack that sits on our back deck, where no one can see it, for unmentionables.
I wish that we had space for a clothesline. I like the way clothes smell after they’ve been dried outside, and there’s no need for those stinky dryer sheets!
After you mentioned this post to me, I had to check it out. I’ve been told I should move to a townhouse where there’s no yard work but the rules, like no clothes lines and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog kennel either, would make me crazy! Plus where do you park a horse trailer? My husband wouldn’t put up a real clothesline for me but did hang one rope under the deck (where it’s not so noticeable). During the winter, I tend to dry things by hanging them on hangers on the shower rod or anything else I can throw something over. Things like towels and jeans, I hang dry most of the way, then throw in the dryer to destiffen.
that was informative and useful.
Electric dryers are a rarity here in NZ. Even when I lived in an apartment block, there was a communal clothesline.
Using clothes lines can be a pain during the wet winter, but we have put up lines inside the garage for those times. It takes longer to dry than if the clothes are out in the sun with a wind, obviously, but the clothes get there eventually.
Everything smells so nice with no added chemicals, your clothes last longer and you use less energy. A lot of wins for a small amount of extra work.
My mom is a firm believer in hanging your heavy laundry out to dry–but the neighbors, not so much. She did have to make the case with her homeowner’s association to keep her clothesline. In the end, her clothesline was grandfathered into the association’s covenants. (Turned out it was built before the association ever existed!)
I’m with you on this one, Rox. and seems such a small step that is helpful to all.
besides, we need to be giving the next generations those memories of how good air dried clothes smell.
I think clotheslines are a great idea! (Except when it’s really cold. Last winter I put out some rugs to dry and they froze to the side of my balcony!). Alas, I don’t have the space for a clothesline in my new place, but I do have a drying rack I can put in my show for air drying sweaters and other hand washed items.
LOVE the topic! I am not as religious about hanging ALL of my clothes out all the time but the sheets – definitely! Also the dog towels (they absorb water so much better than going through the dryer). We carefully chose a neighborhood without convenants – not specifically for the dryer line but so that we could have agility equipment in the yard without complaints. Turns out that most of our neighbors are older and appreciate the clothesline and LOVE the agility equipment and ask to come watch the dog ‘show’.
And as all the previous commenters stated – that sunshine smell – priceless.
So informative! Thanks Roxanne – we dry some things by hanging them but perhaps I’ll do it more. I had no idea that you saved so much energy that way. We have solar electricity, which supplies more than we need in the summer, but not in the winter. So, maybe I’ll be out there in subfreezing temps too!
Excellent post, Roxanne. I’ve used a clothesline for years as I cannot stand to wear tight shirts and I always shrink them in the dryer. I’ve never understood why people pay good money to live in a house where people get to tell you what to do and how you can live. Wasn’t that once called renting?
Things really do smell better when dried on the line. But I don’t have a good place to hang a line where my neighbors can’t see!
You raise such interesting points in this post. I’ve really been trying to be more thoughtful in my consumption, asking myself if the choice to purchase or consume something is driven from my heart. Things feel more in line with what I truly need and want.
Unfortunately, my parents’ way of saving energy (and especially money) is by cutting back on heat and air conditioning until the temperatures are quite extreme. All the while, the dishwasher, dryer, and the like still continue to run. Bleh!
It is funny that both Marge and Lilly are at their worst in the summer. I don’t know about with you, but I feel like Marge is much more willing to plug on when something bothers her on walks if the temperature is low. In the hot weather, something that spooks her almost seems to give her a chance to escape the heat and go back inside – as if the combination of oppressive heat and scary things sends her over her tipping point, but low temps manage to keep her under threshold. Of course, it could be that she’s been conditioned to think hot weather=loud things all around, but it really does leave me thinking when she decides to run zoomies on a 40-degree day regardless of the fact that there are scary children screaming and construction going on not too far away.
I don’t know if I told you but I mentioned you to my vet last month when we went for a visit – I told him about how you have some similar (albeit some more extreme) problems with your dog and how all the work you’ve done in conjunction with your med regimen has really helped. Though he did throw “clomipramine” out again at meas an option while we were on the phone yesterday, I’m still not ready to make that decision.
Yeah–I love the smell of clothes hung on the line. Nothing compares. Old exercise equipment a good stand in, though, as are many other unused things in the house. If you can hang it on a hanger, you can find a place to air dry it.
Nothing — but nothing — smells as good as sheets and clothes dried outdoors. If people are worrying about a simple clothesline, they’ve got too much time on their hands. I suggest they get a hobby.
We always dry the sheets for our B&B outside unless it’s freezing. (They smell so much fresher. And those fabric-softening drier pads are full of chemicals, so bad for your health!) I don’t understand why more people do not revert to this easy way of saving energy. Hanging laundry outside actually makes me feel empowered, sort of like the way I felt when I saw the windmills off the coast of Germany.
I’ve really wanted to use a clothesline, for years now. But there are 5 of us and I can barely do the breakfast dishes (they are sitting on the counter right now). I know it’s just a question of getting in the right habit. We have a very energy efficient dryer but that is still not an excuse. I am inspired by your conversion story! Maybe if I could just hang clothes SOMETIMES that would count? Baby steps…
Roxanne, Thanks for the reminder. When I was growing up we ALWAYS used a clothesline and I loved how everything smelled. Now I want to go out and buy one after reading this – especially since I learned that clothing will still dry in cold weather. And good tip about the small rack to hide your more personal items!