Whose Line is it Anyway?

I will be blogging from one of my favorite places in the world this week, Prague, Czech Republic. I studied here last spring and am now back for spring break. The blog posts for this week will be about things that Czech's or the city of Prague does that are sustainable and how you can implement these things into your life or demand that the businesses, governments, and institutions around you implement into their functioning.

I remember arriving to my apartment in Prague for the first time about to spend the next 4 months living there. I looked around to familiarize myself with everything - fridge over here, bathroom in here, washer in the bathroom, dryer.... nowhere. Turns out my aparment wasn't some anomaly where we had a clothing washer with no dryer. Most apartments in Prague do not have dryers. People here overwhelmingly line dry their clothes on racks instead of using dryers. Line drying is actually incredibly cost-saving, energy-saving, and has plenty of other benefits for the life of your clothes.

What To Do

1) Invest in either a clothes line or a rack. Here is a retractable line. Here is a simple drying rack. Here is a more intense drying rack. If you're a college student or someone with not much space to put a retractable outdoor line or a huge drying rack, I recommend the simple drying rack. It should be enough for one load of laundry, but I have been known to hang some wet clothes over the backs of chairs if I run out of room on the rack.

2) Trial and error - it will become clear whether or not you should also invest in fabric softener, whether or not you prefer outdoor v. indoor drying, etc. after you try it a few times. Links below feature a ton of tips for specific problems you may come across or preferences you may have.

Environmental Win

Line drying is such an environmental win that there's actually a non-profit called Project Laundry List that promotes line drying, sells the materials to do so, and helps fight local ordinances that have banned the practice. Their website is a fantastic resource for news, tips, and cost saving calculators.

Energy saving is always an environmental win as it curbs emissions associated with burning fossil fuels to help lessen one's contribution to climate change. This stat from Green Cleaning Magazine really encapsulates how much energy electric dryers use: "Over 32 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 43 billion kWh, and 443 million therms of natural gas are emitted every year in the U.S. from electric dryers (according to the Environmental Protection Agency)."

Line drying can also make your clothes last longer since the rapid heating and motion from electric dryers can wear out clothes. Longer lasting clothes can easily translate to less purchasing of new clothes which removes your consumption from likely environmentally harmful supply chains.

You also get to spend some time outside in the fresh air which is always an environmental win :)

Economic Win

As I mentioned above, Project Laundry List has a cost calculator that you can use if you pay your own electricity bill to see how much money you'd save if you made the switch to the line. Additionally, the government has an energy efficiency calculator for dryers and other appliances alike. I also have some stats to get the general idea across:

-According to the Department of Energy, dryers account for about 6% of the average household's electricity use.

-Switching to line drying saves between $70-$100 per year on your electricity bill. Sounds like a nice dinner out, to me.

Here are a bunch of with various (and some surprising) tips for line drying that you may find helpful:

http://www.greencleaningmagazine.com/green-cleaning-how-line-drying-can-save-the-planet/

http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/home/organic-way-dry-your-clothes

http://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/tips-for-line-drying-your-clothes.htm

http://www.levistrauss.com/unzipped-blog/2015/02/5-tips-for-line-drying-your-laundry/

http://www.instructables.com/id/Lazy-Line-Dry/