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 