Laundry Liberation: Fighting for the Right to Hang Your Clothes Out to Dry
Belief:
What if People Actually Treated Religion as Just a Metaphor (Like Trekkies and Secular Jews)?
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams
David DeGraw
DrugReporter:
When It’s Crunch Time at College, Students Turn to Adderall
Erik Hayden
Environment:
20 Weird, Crazy Ideas for Helping the Earth
Food:
The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare
Tara Lohan
Health and Wellness:
Pharmaceutical Giant Paid $500,000 to Psychiatrist Who Used Chicago's Poor as Guinea Pigs
Christina Jewett and Sam Roe
Immigration:
Dobbs' Resignation Was Long Overdue
Janet Murguía
Media and Technology:
Is Right-Wing Media Hustler Trying to "Blackmail" Obama's Attorney General over ACORN Videos?
David Edwards, Muriel Kane
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
New Right-Wing Craze: Using Bible Quote to Pray That Obama’s 'Days Be Few'
Amanda Terkel
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Hey Guys, Don't Want Kids? A Vascetomy Is Probably the Way to Go
Anna Clark
Rights and Liberties:
Economic Crisis Is Getting Bloody -- Violent Deaths Are Now Following Evictions, Foreclosures and Job Losses
Nick Turse
Sex and Relationships:
How Abstinence-Only Programs Perpetuate Dangerous Stereotypes
Martha Kempner
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Army Sends Mom to Afghanistan, Infant to Protective Services
Dahr Jamail
Fighting for a hybrid in every garage is cake compared to the battle to allow an outdoor clothesline in every yard. Still, advocacy groups like Project Laundry List are urging a return to the days before newfangled cleaning machines drained our electric bills and resources – a time when nobody flinched at the sight of a big bra or jockey shorts flapping in the wind.
Why do these soldiers refuse to fold?
The advocacy group New American Dream calculates that if every American home switched to cold water for four out of five loads, together we can save $6.7 billion per year and keep nearly 50 million tons of carbon out of the atmosphere – the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road.
If only 40% of those households also line dried their clothes, the annual carbon savings would more than double.
Founded by Alexander Lee of Condord, NH, Project Laundry List has established a website that tracks states with ordinances banning outdoor clotheslines, such as Oregon. You can watch a compelling CBS video on the site of a feature Bill Geist did about a Bend woman engaging in civil disobedience in her subdivision by fighting for her right to conserve energy.
Nationwide, some 300,000 communities with home owner associations restrict outdoor laundry hanging, according to the Community Associations Institute.
See more stories tagged with: energy, global warming, clothesline
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
You've chosen to turn comments off for the entire site. Would you like to turn them back on?
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.