If your household, like so many others, is inching toward a more sustainable lifestyle, your laundry routine is a good place to start making small changes that will add up to big benefits for the health of your family and the environment. This epic guide to natural and eco-friendly laundry covers it all — it’ll help you lower your carbon footprint and pad your pocketbook.
Doing your laundry probably doesn’t strike a lot of joy in your heart. But good hygiene and looking good unfortunately require moderately clean clothes, so it looks like you’re in it for the long-haul — to the tune of nearly eight loads of laundry a week, which probably sounds laughable if you have kids who play sports.
But if you’re an average American, you’re looking at doing roughly 3,120 loads of laundry in the coming decade, which will use 127,920 gallons of water and almost 49 gallons of detergent. Together, Americans’ residential laundry practices account for 179 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year — equivalent to the total annual energy use of 21 million homes.
Since you’re pretty much sentenced to a lifetime of laundering, why not green up your routine? It’s not hard, and you’ll be a part of a fast-growing movement of earthlings trying to do better by the planet.