An activity as simple and seemingly harmless as washing and drying clothes can have a considerable impact on the environment, considering that it is carried out daily by millions of people around the world, using in total huge quantities of products with chemical compounds, such as fabric softeners and detergents, and employing machines that consume abundant amounts of water and electricity.
For this reason, different teams of scientists are investigating the effects, often underestimated and generally little studied, of domestic hygiene on the health of the planet and its natural resources and ways of life, reaching unexpected conclusions in some cases.
Today, most people are inclined to lead an environmentally friendly life, but this inclination does not extend to washing habits, where the fear of being seen as dirty often triumphs over the desire to maintain greener household hygiene, according to Chalmers University of Technology, UTCh, in Sweden.
In fact, the more prone a person is to feeling disgust, the more they wash clothes, according to research from UTCh. “Although machines are more energy efficient, it is the frequency with which we wash that has the biggest impact on the climate – and we have never washed as much as we do now, so emissions from washing have never been higher,” says Erik Klint, a researcher in the Environmental Systems Analysis Division at Chalmers.
The unnoticed impact of doing laundry
It notes that “between 16 and 35 percent of global microplastic emissions come from the washing of synthetic fibers” and that “detergents contribute to eutrophication (abnormal excess of inorganic nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus in the soil), while the use of energy and water for washing also has environmental impacts.”
“At the same time, most of us seem uninterested in changing our laundry habits to reduce our climate impact,” Klint laments.
One of the most striking conclusions of the Swedish study is the relationship between disgust sensitivity and the propensity to wash.
“Many people experience a psychological conflict between the desire to wash less clothes to protect the environment and the fear of being perceived as unpleasant individuals who carry their dirty laundry,” explains Klint.
“Disgust is a very strong psychological and social driving force. The study shows that the higher our sensitivity to disgust, the more we wash clothes. The feeling of disgust simply trumps environmental awareness,” she says.
For Klint, the study highlights that current campaigns and messages to get people to act in an environmentally friendly way often fail to take into account the psychological aspects behind people’s behaviour, such as disgust.
According to this researcher, “we do laundry because the laundry basket is full or one of our favorite items of clothing is dirty, or because there is a free slot at the shared laundry room” (or because we fear that others will consider us unpleasant people for carrying dirty clothes, as revealed in Chalmers’ study).
The focus of environmental messages and campaigns should therefore be on the underlying behaviours that create the need to wash, she stresses.
One of the key suggestions from Chalmers’ study is to encourage people to wear clothes more often before putting them in the laundry basket.
“Excessive washing could be combated with messages such as ‘most people wear their T-shirt more than once’; by suggesting that people replace using the washing machine with actions such as airing clothes, brushing off dirt or removing individual stains by hand; or by emphasizing economic arguments, such as that ‘clothes wear out when they go through the washing machine’,” she concludes.
Drying also pollutes a lot.
Machine drying clothes also has a significant environmental impact, according to Northumbria University (NU) in Newcastle, UK.
A UN study in collaboration with scientists from Procter and Gamble reveals that drying clothes in a condenser dryer causes the release of hundreds of tonnes of potentially harmful microfibres into waterways and seas in the UK and Europe.
Although condenser dryers collect moisture from wet clothes in a container, rather than venting it into the air like vented dryers, researchers found they still generate waterborne contamination from microfibres dumped into household drains.
Most microfibres shed by tumble dryers accumulate in the lint filter, but some manufacturers recommend washing it regularly under the tap, which increases microfibre contamination via water, according to Professor John Dean, from Northumbria’s Department of Applied Sciences.
Some practical solutions
To avoid this, the university suggests cleaning the lint filter by hand, using a soft brush, a cloth or a vacuum cleaner, and disposing of the collected fibres as dry waste in the household rubbish, instead of washing it under the tap. “This can reduce the release of microfibres from dryers and contribute to the protection of the natural aquatic environment,” they conclude.
To reduce water and electricity consumption, specialists from the firm Stanhome (www.stanhome.es), specialised in home care, recommend reducing the number of times the washing machine is used as much as possible, “filling it without overloading it and leaving a free space equivalent to the size of a hand, at least, between the drum of the machine and the clothes”.
Most of the energy consumed by a washing machine is used to heat the water, which is why this company recommends using cold water programs and short washes.
Conventional detergents contain chemical ingredients in their formulas, which can irritate the skin and cause allergies, and damage the environment, especially aquatic organisms, which is why this company recommends using ecological products produced taking into account sustainability criteria.
Hanging clothes out in the sun and outdoors instead of using a tumble dryer in the warm months, and removing wrinkles from fine garments by hanging them on a clothesline and exposing them to steam in the shower instead of ironing them in the cold months, are actions that save electricity, according to Stanhome.
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