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Energy Is Our Future-Don’t Waste It!
It’s Friday…let’s talk about a way we can save, conserve and maintain energy for our future generations.
Wash Laundry with Cold Water
Using hot or warm water to wash your clothes consumes much more energy than using cold water. According to the U.S. Department of energy, using less water and using cooler water can both reduce the amount of energy used to wash clothes. A large percent of energy in the home is wasted on heating water to wash clothes. Approximately 80-90% of the energy used for washing laundry is for heating the water…only 10% is the electricity used to power your washing machine.
By washing 4 out of 5 loads of laundry in cold water, you could (Ref):
- Save $60 or more annually.
- Reduce your CO2 emissions by 72 pounds in one month.
If every household in the United States washed 4 out of 5 loads with cold water, together we could:
- Save $6.7 billion per year
- Reduce about 50 million tons of CO2 emissions (that is equivalent to removing 10 million cars from the road)!
Effort: Low
Time Required: None
Materials Needed: Cold Water Laundry Detergent of your choice
Instructions:
- When you do a load of laundry, set your washing machine on the “cold/cold” setting.
- In a situation where it is necessary to wash in warm or hot water (heavy stains), set your machine to “hot/cold” or “warm/cold.” This will use cold water in the rinse cycle.
Helpful Reminder: Set you “favorite” cycle on your washing machine to a cold/cold setting so that every time you go to do a load of laundry you hit the favorite cycle button and it automatically washes with cold water.
