Green Thought Thursdays: Cold Water Washing

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet. Last week we talked about reusable coffee cups.

This week the green thought is about washing with cold water.

Washing dishes with cold water can save a lot of energy. Photo: reviewed.com

We all wash clothes. We all wash dishes. All this washing uses water, soaps, and energy. The energy is used to pump water, to run dish washers and washing machines, and to heat the water. And that last part is where we can all easily do a lot better! About 90% of energy used in washing cloths and dishes is used to heat the water. Just to heat the water! Using energy means burning fossil fuels which releases carbon dioxide which contributes to climate change.

An easy solution is to simply wash with cold water! I will admit that washing dishes by hand with cold water is not as comfortable as with warm water. But washing clothes and dishes with cold water works as well as with hot water. And it saves energy which reduces releases of carbon dioxide which avoids climate change.

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have any other solution ideas?

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Green Thought Thursdays: Greener Laundry

Once a week, I am offering up a tip or action or idea that we can all engage with to help reduce waste, use less materials and energy, help conserve species or habitats, and/or generally work towards living in ways that allow for more health and wellbeing for all aspects of the planet.

So, this week the green thought is about how we do our laundry. Water requires a lot of energy to heat up in a washing machine. It also takes a lot of energy to run a dryer to get the water out of our cloths. This energy means burning fossil fuels which are the cause of global climate change. By finding way to use less energy we can all help reduce some of the impacts of climate change. We can also save some money since paying for all that energy can be expensive!

Clean laundry hang-drying (photo courtesy of Lowe’s).

Several solutions are pretty easy on this one! We can wash clothes in cold water. This removes all the energy needed to heat up the water. We can hang-dry our clothes, when we can. This removes all the energy needed to heat up the air and run the dryer. And when we can’t hang-dry our laundry, we can use dryer balls. This reduces the amount of time that a dryer has to run and so reduces the amount of energy needed in the drying process. So, by using less energy on laundry days we can all help address climate change and reduce our household expenses at the same time!

Thank you for visiting my blog! Please check back in next week for another Green Thought Thursday!

If you are interested in other ways to connect with me, here are a few options:

Begin following this blog!

View and subscribe to my YouTube channel – A Birding Naturalist

Follow me on Instagram – abirdingnaturalist

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