Doing laundry is a dirty job. Here's how to make it cleaner.
In Unearthed, Yahoo Life discusses some of the most pressing issues facing our planet — and reveals what you can do to help make a real difference.
We may love it when our clothes smell like spring, but unfortunately, the chemicals that mimic nature’s fresh, clean scents in laundry detergent take a big toll on the actual environment — not to mention the water usage, polluting plastics and various other issues involved with washing our wardrobes. So, how do we act more sustainably — and still keep our clothes from getting funky?
First, it’s important to be aware of the issues that come with doing laundry.
Water and energy use
More than 80% of households in the United States, according to Statista, have a washing machine, and an average one uses 15 to 25 gallons of water per cycle, says Yusuf Jameel, a data scientist with Project Drawdown, which works toward climate-change solutions. It can vary, though, depending on how efficient your machine is — an Energy Star-certified machine, for example, will use only 14 gallons of water per load.
Electricity-wise, Jameel says that, on average, washing machines use between 300 and 1500 watts per cycle, with the average being closer to 800 watts — with hot water being the biggest factor in terms of how much energy is expended.
“According to some estimates 70 to 90% of this energy is used to heat water if there is no direct hot water connection,” he points out.
And that’s not even including use of the dryer, which can use between 1800 to 5000 watts of energy on its own per cycle.
So why does that matter? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, "All forms of electricity generation have an environmental impact on our air, water and land, but it varies. Of the total energy consumed in the United States, about 40% is used to generate electricity, making electricity use an important part of each person’s environmental footprint."
Increased efficiency can lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutants. So, if you're in the market for a new washer-dryer, check for that Energy Star certification, which requires meeting strict energy efficiency criteria set by the EPA or the U.S. Department of Energy. Another bonus? They'll save you money on your electricity bill.
What about detergent?
While there’s an ever-expanding market of natural, plant-based detergents, mainstream brands still rely on chemical ingredients that can not only hurt the environment, but our own health. Samara Geller, senior director of cleaning science at the Environmental Working Group, tells Yahoo Life that there are several things to watch out for when purchasing detergents, starting with this mouthful: ethoxylated surfactants, which are ingredients such as polyethylene, polyethylene glycol (PEG) and ceteareth.
“Surfactants help loosen and remove soils and keep them from redepositing on fabric,” she explains, adding that while some surfactants undergo a process called "ethoxylation" to minimize the skin irritation potential, still, "some ethoxylated surfactants contain high levels of dioxane and ethylene oxide impurities — chemicals linked to cancer.”
In fact, New York state, for one, just limited the percentage of dioxane permitted in household cleaning products such as detergents.
Also, notes EWG, beware of nitro and polycyclic musks found in fragrance mixtures — which come with risk of endocrine disruption and come in forms including galaxolide, musk xylene and musk ketone — as well as optical brighteners, also known as fluorescent whitening agents.
“They persist in the environment, are toxic to aquatic life, as well as have possible reproductive impacts,” Geller notes. “These are chemicals deposited on clothes that trick the eye — so that clothes appear brighter or whiter through fluorescence. But current treatment technologies are not fully able to remove these chemicals from wastewater effluent.”
Another issue is the presence of boron-containing compounds, also known as borates, which balance pH, stabilize enzymes and are used to aid in soil removal; they commonly appear as boric acid, sodium borate and disodium tetraborate. “We have concern for reproductive and developmental toxicity associated with borates,” Geller says.
Finally, if you like to use bleach to get your whites crisp and clean, Geller advises rethinking that, as it's “one of the most frequent culprits for calls to poison control centers," and can harm the respiratory tract, burn the skin and splash into the eyes to cause serious damage, while improper mixing can cause gas that has the potential to trigger asthma.
It also has potential for environmental harm, as, when bleach enters waterways, it can form dioxins, known carcinogens, and can harm wildlife.
Laundry also means plastic waste
If you’ve ever had to haul a giant jug of laundry detergent (and let's face it, who hasn't?), then you know that doing wash breeds plastic waste — and it doesn't stop with the containers. In fact, one big issue with laundry is microplastics, which are tiny plastic pieces, less than 0.2 inches in diameter. And they lurk in some of the most common laundry detergents in the form of microbeads and microplastic fragments — not the mention the plastic of those increasingly common pods, which, tests have found, do not always fully dissolve.
And this is not even counting the damage of microfibers: When we wash clothes made from plastic (such as items made of polyester and acrylic) they shed from our clothes and go into the wastewater.
“Washing synthetic clothes, such as those made from polyester and acrylic fibers, contributes to plastic pollution — producing microplastics that are too small to be caught by most water filters,” Erika Veidis, the Planetary Health Program Manager at Stanford University’s Center for Innovation in Global Health tells Yahoo Life. “Researchers have found this to be one of the main primary sources of microplastics in water — comprising about 35% of primary microplastics released to oceans globally.”
While there's still research to be done in this field, there's good reason to be concerned about microplastics' impact on one's health, as well as on the health of aquatic life.
“Researchers have suggested that plastics less than [0.0007 inches] in size can penetrate organs, and that pieces less than [0.0003 inches] can cross cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier," Veidis shares. "Microplastics have now been found in numerous bodily tissues, including the blood and pregnant women's placentas, showing that distribution through bodily tissues is possible — engendering many health risks. Studies estimate that we consume a credit card’s worth of plastic every week.”
Buying detergents made without toxins and clothes made with natural fibers is one way to avoid shedding microplastics, but there are other ways to reduce your impact, too.
According to researchers at Newcastle University, the more water there is to fabric in your laundry cycle, the more microplastics that are shed, with the delicate (water-generous) cycle being a worse culprit than the standard cycle. That's because the more water used, the more easily microplastics are able to be plucked from the fabric.
This also means it’s better not to do small loads of laundry, and instead, to make sure that you are filling up your machine each time you run it — which may mean doing less loads of laundry overall.
How else can we make laundry more sustainable?
There are a lot of ways in which laundry can impact the environment — and the good news there means that there are numerous ways to tweak your laundry practices to make them less harmful. That can include switching to a less-toxic detergent — like Tru Earth laundry strips, for example, which are paraben- and phosphate-free as well as free of dioxane, and come with lightweight, jug-free packaging. Charlie’s Soap Laundry Powder is similarly pure — certified as a Safer Choice by the Environmental Protection Agency, along with many others in its handy database — and comes in a recyclable pouch, while Dropps Stain & Odor Detergent Pods, also EPA-approved, uses 100% carbon-neutral shipping.
Be prepared for sticker-shock, though, as detergents like the above cost more — upwards of $.35 per load as compared to the more traditional (but more toxic) brands, which can cost as low as $.10 per load, depending on where you make your purchase.
Outside of detergent, one can also make laundry practices more sustainable by following some simple guidelines. Patric Richardson, known as the Laundry Evangelist on Discovery+, offers some tips:
Wash your clothes less often — and treat stains separately
Many people toss their clothes in the hamper at the end of the day, even if all they’ve been doing is sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned room. There’s no need for that in most cases, say Richardson. Workout clothes may need to go in the washer after one use, but unless you’re sweating all day, “you can wear your jeans nine or 10 times before you wash them,” he tells Yahoo Life.
He also notes that just because something gets a stain doesn’t mean it automatically needs to go in the washing machine. Instead, spot treating an item (just washing and brushing out the stain) can be just as effective, if not more so, as throwing it in the washing machine.
“I was just at a home show, and I got clam chowder on my sweatshirt. I had it on barely 20 minutes. That doesn’t mean it’s going in the washing machine. I just hit it with a little soap and a horsehair brush and rinsed it and it was fine,” he says. “That’s something people used to do. Spot treating used to be a thing, but now we have the idea, ‘Oh, I’ll just throw it in the washing machine.’ Spot treating is especially great for something like a sports coat, which you don’t want to wash, because it’s a pain to iron.”
Plus, the less frequently your clothes are washed, the longer they will last — meaning you’re saving water and energy down the line by not having to replace your clothes as often.
Ditch the dryer — and those dryer sheets
The same came be said for using the dryer. Richardson does laundry just once a week, and he hangs most of his clothes. He points out that in Europe, this is a much more common practice — but Americans sometimes think it will take too long. Not the case, he says.
“I do five loads of laundry a week in one day, and I find that by the time I do loads three or four, loads one and two are dry and I’m putting them away,” he says. “They don’t take that long, because they aren’t dripping wet. When you use less detergent, the clothes also hold less water.”
Richardson does still use his dryer — but saves it for sheets, towels, socks and underwear.
Finally, you might want to consider ditching those wasteful dryer sheets, which are made from synthetic polyester, making them a single-use plastic. Some surprising alternatives include reusable dryer balls made of wool and silicone, but also DIY options such as a cloth lightly sprayed with distilled white vinegar.
Wellness, parenting, body image and more: Get to know the who behind the hoo with Yahoo Life’s newsletter. Sign up here.
