Cool runnings
Why you should almost always wash your clothes on cold
In Elena Karpova’s household, the rumbling sound of a clothes dryer has become an unfamiliar noise. “I use the dryer maybe twice, three times a year, just when it’s an emergency,” says Karpova, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro who studies textile and apparel sustainability.
Instead, Karpova prefers to air dry her clothes. Dryers, she says, are “energy gobblers” and when combined with machine washing too often can wear out clothes much more quickly, in addition to having huge environmental and climate impacts.
Washing “can be the most significant thing that you do” to your clothes, says Mark Sumner, a lecturer focusing on sustainability within the textile, clothing and fashion industry at the University of Leeds’ School of Design. Laundering a garment could cause it to shrink, become misshapen, fade or pill (when small balls of fuzz form on the surface of clothes).
“It can be really quite harmful to the clothes itself,” shortening the life of the garment and leading to purchases of new clothing, Sumner says. “And of course, let’s not forget about energy and water and detergents used in the washing process,” which can also release microfibers into waterways and exacerbate the problem of microplastic pollution. “It’s a double whammy.”
Making simple changes to your laundry routine, he and other experts say, can go a long way in helping you reduce emissions, save money and take better care of your clothes.
Understand the impact
While many people focus on manufacturing when calculating their clothes’ environmental impact, machine washing and drying clothes can often be a major source of pollution and emissions.
In fact, the impacts of laundry can be “on the same order of magnitude” as the production phase of clothing, says Roland Geyer, a life cycle assessment expert and professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
“People are washing their clothes more frequently than they ever did before,” Sumner says. According to Energy Star, the average American family does 300 loads of laundry each year.
A standard washing machine uses around 20 gallons of water for each load and electric dryers, on average, can use anywhere from 1,800 to 5,000 watts of energy, or about 1.8 to 5 kilowatt hours of electricity per cycle, according to Energy Star.
Choosing more efficient washers and dryers can make a difference for the planet and
your wallet. Energy Star certified washing machines generally use about 25 percent less energy and 33 percent less water than regular models. Meanwhile, certified dryers are 20 percent more efficient compared to standard dryers.
A household that uses washers and dryers certified by Energy Star could reduce their carbon footprint by more than 400 pounds of CO2 annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which is equal to planting a quarter acre of trees.
If every American household swapped out their appliances for more efficient models, the impacts would be even greater. The
combined cost savings would swell above $4.8 billion each year and more than 41 billion pounds of annual greenhouse gas emissions would be prevented from entering the atmosphere, the EPA estimates. That’s equivalent to the emissions from nearly 4 million cars.
But even if you have high-efficiency machines, experts say it’s still important to cut down on the loads of laundry you’re doing.
“Every time we put that garment in the washing machine, part of it is gone down the drain,” says Cosette Joyner Martinez, an associate professor in the department