It may be hard to believe, but some 35,000 homeowners’ associations in California alone ban clotheslines.
That’s a lot of places where the wonderfully drying California sun could be doing for free what otherwise takes a lot of energy and, these days, adds plenty to homeowners’ gas or electric bills.
As Mindy Spatt of the Utility Reform Network pointed out in an op-ed column last week, a clothes line
requires no government subsidy, no tax rebate and no expensive installation. On a hot day, it can practically match an electric or gas dryer load for load. And it costs next to nothing.
She contrasts the savings in energy we’d achieve simply by air-drying our clothes with the money the State of California is spending on finding high-tech, and too often high-cost, solutions to our energy ills. Says Spatt:
it isn’t necessary to drive bills for essentials like heat and light through the roof to fight climate change. We can lower our bills and conserve energy at the same time with low-tech, low-cost solutions. Electric and gas dryers account for about 10 percent of residential electricity usage statewide.
So let’s press those homeowners associations to stop banning clotheslines, Spatt argues. If, like us, you agree with her, you can find more information at Project Laundry List.
From the news items posted at the site, that snobbery about laundry is a nationwide phenomenon. Spatt’s op-ed suggests one good trick to get around that: Don’t call it a ‘clothes line,’ call it a ‘solar dryer.’
EarthQuaker 
So funny how we Americans are concerned with appearances. If we hang-dry our clothes, then it makes us appear as if we are not successful enough to own a dryer. If we have brown spots on our lawns, we aren’t successful enough to afford chemicals to pollute our water, birds and loved ones.
When will we get past these out-dated notions of appearances and start doing what’s right for the earth?
Dagny McKinley
http://www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel
Dear Earthquaker, great to find your site! I wandered over from One Straw. Amen about the clothesline — I love mine and it feels silly now to use the dryer when the weather is pretty. A writer friend of mine posted a pic and a poem called “Instrument of Peace” about her clothesline. I think you would enjoy it. It’s at http://arkansasscribbler.blogspot.com/2008/03/instrument-of-peace.html
Keep up the great work and I look forward to reading regularly.
A Gardener at Larrapin
http://larrapin.blogspot.com
[…] September 21, 2009 by Simon Other pressing duties have kept us from updating this site anything like as often as we’d have liked, but while we’ve been somewhat dormant it’s been interesting to see what has still brought people here. Perhaps the number one subject on the site that has drawn in visitors over the past year is the issue of washing lines. […]