Minimize your laundry impact

We all have it (and lots of it!), here are some tips to help minimize your environmental impact when you do laundry:

1. Wash on cold – most items wash up well with cold water (even if they say “warm”)

2. Use natural detergent (or at least phosphate free) – or make your own!

3. Use wool dryer balls* instead of fabric sheets (or use 1/3 dryer sheet at a time, and re-use it more than once)

4. If you’re using a non-HE washing machine, be sure to adjust your water level manually based on the size of your load.

5. Dry your clothes outside whenever you can. If you don’t like the ‘crunchy’ feel, try putting them in the dryer on Air Only or on low heat for 15 minutes to fluff them back up.

6. Challenge yourself to use less water on wash day to balance out your water usage (a good one is flushing toilets less often – if its yellow, let it mellow! Or skip a shower on wash day.)

7. Wear clothes more than once when possible (especially jeans, bras, sweaters, towels, etc.) - it's really not disgusting, trust me.

8. Find a crafty use for your dryer lint (and let us know what it is)! Remember not to put your dryer lint out for the birds – it doesn’t make the best nesting material, opposite of what you might think! (www.allaboutbirds.org)

*Use 2-6 wool dryer balls to help fluff laundry and speed drying time. They don’t help with static in my experience, but drying synthetics (especially fleece) separately helps a lot with that. Lots of Etsy sellers make great wool dryer balls!

(Tip originally published by me on the EcoEtsy street team site)