Thursday, April 12, 2007

Hanging Out Day

You may or may not know that I DESPISE laundry and anything to do with it. I often procrastinate and then complain the whole day that I have to do it. So the fact that I am willing to try this is a little nutty but here it goes... I read this article on one of the blogs I read and am wondering if anyone is willing to try this with me... for the day.

"Mark this down in your calendar: April 19 is National Hanging Out day, which is not about slackers but about hanging out your slacks, a celebration of the clothesline as an alternative to the dryer. Founded by clothesline activist Alexander Lee of laundrylist.org, it champions "the right to dry" which many people do not have due to building regulations and restrictive covenants prohibiting "ugly" clotheslines. Yet clothes dried on lines last longer, smell better and save you a lot of money.

There are 88 million dryers in America, and if everyone converted to lines it could reduce residential output of CO2 by 3.3%. “It’s a huge waste of energy to tumble dry your clothes,” said Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer of TerraPass. “It’s one of the simplest things to do to help with global warming.” ::New York Times"


I know Emily already does this... I am going to give it a try. I already have the line and clothespins...

4 comments:

Erica said...

At the very least I could do it on April 19th, although I don't have lines or pins... My grandparents have tons of pins, so I could borrow those. But where would I hang a line... Hmmm, I may have to improvise. But I am in!

Emily said...

Good for you Jennifer! I think you will find it's actually kind of fun. Cameron and I started doing this when we bought our first house together in 2003 and it came with a heavy duty clothesline in the backyard. At first we thought "how ugly" but then we really started enjoying the fact that we could save so much energy by hanging our laundry and I thought it was kind of fun.
When we bought our house in SR, there was no clothesline waiting for us so Cameron strung one up in the garage. This way it doesn't bother the neighbors (if they were to be bothered) and its right next to our washing machine. We just leave the garage door open during the day and the clothes are usually dry in about half a day or less. I usually throw all the wet clothes in a basket and then have Noah hand them to me one by one while I hang. It makes him feel like he's "helping" and gives us an activity. I am very encouraged by all your "one a days". Thank you!

Jennifer Krug said...

Sarha gets the props for this one-a-day! That was a great post, and it's on my list of things to do too.

Eco-Mom said...

I know this was a while ago, but I am way behind in my reading here. Anyway, I'd love to participate (even though I missed the 4/19 date). Sequoia will FREAK if we have a clothesline. Too TP for him. (this is from that childhood thing I mentioned on another post) I'll see if I can ever get it done. Maybe I can bargain on towels and sheets... no "unmentionables!" :-)

Welcome Visitors!

If you're reading for the first time, it may feel a bit like you've just walked into a conversation that has been going on for awhile.

So to catch you up...

Jennifer started this blog because she was going through the process of becoming more conscious of her lifestyle choices and had decided to "go green". As she talked to her friends she quickly realized that she was not the only one interested in making changes. The blog was born. We used this as a place to discuss things we've tried and to support each other in the journey.