A recent story from the Associated Press, and reported in the AZ Republic today made a case for clothes lines. Yes, clothes lines and a time when life was simpler. Remember when we hung our clothes out, the warm sun drying them in a reasonable time, the fresh smell? Ah, but no more. Life without clothes dryers. Hmmm……how would we ever make it.? The challenge with clothes lines is……they hardly exist anymore. Most homeowners associations prohibit them, not wanting to allow anyone to air their laundry, dirty or not. So, we resort to the sounds of thumping shoes and scraping zippers as the dryer drum turns, sometimes for hours a day.
There could be some change on the horizon, though. There is a move on by grass roots “Right to Dry” groups nationwide to override HOAs across the country. Why? Do we really want to see our neighbors blue jeans, t-shirts and dainties on the line? I’m sure we don’t want to but could tolerate it given the following statistics. In 2005, there were 88 million dryers in the US, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. Annually, these dryers consume 1,079 kilowatt hours of energy per household, creating 2,224 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions. Do the math and the numbers become mind boggling. That’s 95 Billion KWH of energy and nearly 196 Billion pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions. I’m choking and coughing on the numbers, dollars and pollution just thinking about it!
So maybe it’s time to get back to a simpler life…a greener life….a healthier life. Why not, it really wouldn’t be that difficult. Just gotta get past those darn HOAs.
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