Wash Your Clothes in Cold Water

Looking for a simple way to save energy? Wash your clothes in cold water. 90% of the energy used in washing laundry is used to heat the water. According to the Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance, which (get this) has created an entire website devoted to encouraging people to Switch to Cold,

If all households in Canada that currently use either hot or warm water to wash their clothes switch to cold water, approximately 1.5 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent would be prevented from entering the earth’s atmosphere.

The site says the average household can save $52 (Canadian?) by making the switch. Want a more accurate gauge of your own energy savings? Go to this site, which allows you to enter in your washer type, water heating source (gas or electric) and the number of loads of laundry you do each week. According to the site, a regular washer with gas-heated hot water doing three loads of laundry a week would save $29, not to mention 26.4 Therms and 310 lbs of CO2. Not bad for a change you probably won't even notice.

You can buy special detergents formulated for washing with cold water. But at Really Natural, we made the switch about a year ago and haven't noticed a difference.

Read More in: Energy Savers

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