Laundry

The following topics are ordered starting with the choices that will help reduce your impact the most, down to those that will may require more effort for less ecological benefit. This has been based on the chart below, but may be adjusted more as we finetune our understanding on these issues.

We include the following suggestions as a general guideline, so please remember not to beat yourself up if you aren't able to do all or any of these things. 

Since laundry is one of the less impactful changes we can make compared to eating an Earth-friendly diet, changing our transit habits, or choosing smaller families (in regards to emissions and water use), I try to motivate myself to use these habits and supplies for other benefits like reducing the chemicals in our home, saving on our utility bills, and helping our laundry last longer.

For a variety of reasons, drying outside is a luxury I can't usually enjoy, but I have found that using an indoor drying rack helps provide me with an ADHD-friendly visual que to remember to do laundry in a timely manner. If you or a loved one struggle with attention or memory problems, you may also find hang drying to provide the same benefits.

Washing

How you wash your clothes can have a fair environmental impact, especially if you are using harsh chemicals, but there are cheap ingredients (many of which you can find in your pantry) which can effectively help clean, deodorize, and soften your clothing naturally.

Using renewable energy to power washing and drying machines can also help reduce our impact. Washing most of your laundry on cold will help reduce impact and energy costs, but air/sun drying your laundry would have the largest impact. 

We advise using hot or at least warm water for your dirtiest items including towels, bedding, items used for/by pets, new clothes from second hand locations (this can kill any moth eggs before they hatch and infest your other textiles). Reusable nappies should also be washed hot, but period pads only need to be washed on hot once in a while (every 3rd wash often helps prevent any new smells, but if you have had a recent infection, washing with hot water can help prevent a recurrence). 

Click the link to the left to learn how to wash clothes without a washing machine.

Chemicals & Cost-Friendly Cleaning

Extend Your Laundry Budget with Baking Soda

"You may not be ready to entirely let go of your laundry detergent, but if you create a mix of half laundry detergent and half baking soda, you’ll find that you get the same results with half the harsh chemical detergent and less cost. Think of using baking soda like you’re using a powder detergent – it will work better if you let it dissolve for a few minutes before you add the clothing."

Baking soda can soften your clothes if you have hard water, remove stains (especially if you pretreat with cold water- instruction lower on this page), sanitize, and deodorize your clothes with less ecological impact than many other cleaners. It's non toxic, so if a child eats some, they will be fine.

Dealing with Hard Water

"If your water is hard, add a little borax or baking soda. Hard water leaves a white, mineral residue on pipes, sinks, and dishes after heavy use. If this happens with your water, counteract this effect on delicate clothing by stirring in a spoonful of powdered borax.[7] Baking soda is less effective, but has a similar ability to soften water." - https://www.wikihow.com/Wash-Clothes-without-a-Washing-Machine 

Deodorizing 

Free & Near-Zero Impact

Cheap & Low Impact

Baking Soda + Vinegar: It is believed that adding vinegar and baking soda will make a more powerful cleaner, but the two actually combine to make water. The bubbles may help kill some bacteria, and give some cleaning benefit, but it may be better to use one, then the other to maximize their benefits.

Fabric Softener

Some people use fabric softeners without thinking but "in-wash fabric softeners and heat-activated dryer sheets can pack a powerful combination of chemicals that can harm your health, damage the environment and pollute the air, inside and outside your home." - EWG

Among the chemicals to watch out for are:

Quats

"Quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats, make clothes feel soft and wearable right out of the wash, but some are known to trigger asthma and may be toxic to the reproductive system.

Check labels and product websites for these ingredients, and avoid them: distearyldimonium chloride and others ending in “monium chloride” as well as vague terms like “biodegradable fabric softening agent” and “cationic surfactant.”" - EWG

Fragrance 

Since "there are "nearly 4,000 fragrance ingredients in common household products, and scarcely any way to know what they are.

Your fabric softener may contain phthalates, which disperse scent; synthetic musks such as galaxolide, which accumulate in the body; and much more.

Fragrance mixes can cause allergies, skin irritations such as dermatitis, difficulty breathing and potential reproductive harm. Research shows that scents may also cause health problems when vented outdoors, especially for asthmatics and those sensitive to chemicals." - EWG

Preservatives 

These are "known to trigger asthma and skin allergies. Glutaral, or glutaraldehyde, is also toxic to marine life." - EWG

Colours

"Among artificial colors, D&C violet 2 has been linked to cancer. Others may contain impurities that can cause cancer." - EWG

How Eco-Friendly Are These in Cleaning Ingredients?

Baking Soda

Baking soda has traditionally been mined and estimates project we have enough to last for the next 2,000 years, but advances in carbon capture produce baking soda as a non-toxic byproduct. Both processes require energy and currently rely on fossil fuels, but reduce the use/creation of more harmful chemical cleaners. Another benefit is that you can buy baking soda in cardboard instead of plastic containers.

Microplastics

Microplastics are estimated to account for 80% to 85% of marine litter. Some of it has shed from fishing equipment, shoes, tires, and ocean trash, but large deposits of microplastics have becomes concentrated around sewage outlets indicating that our laundry is another major source of this pollution.

Microplastics in the Washing Machine

The best way to avoid shedding microplastics is to avoid synthetic fabrics, but a filter will help reduce the amount of microplastic being blasted into the air outside your home.

Reducing the Impact of Microplastics

Drying

Line & Rack Drying

We often think of line drying laundry to be a solar-powered technique, but it's good to know that this method still works at night and indoors. Sunlight will speed the drying process and has antibacterial benefits, it'll help with bleaching too! However on rainy days or nights you can bring laundry in and dry it on a rack or line (people often have a line installed over a bathtub or in their laundry room). A window cracked open to encourage air movement will help speed up the drying process compared to an enclosed space with no air movement.

Resources for Line Drying Laundry

Machine Drying

Machine drying with an electric machine is more efficient and eco-friendly than using gas. Try to purchase or generate renewable energy to maximize benefits.

Dryer Sheets

These are generally made of plastics that shed and soaked with harmful chemicals which can cause allergic reactions and asthma attacks.

"Today scientists estimate that textiles produce 35% of the microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans"

Wool Balls

These have been marketed as eco-friendly replacements for dryer sheets, since they are organic and a byproduct of the sheep industry. The theory behind them being eco-friendly is that they can biodegrade at the end of life (my dog tried to eat one and it has been slowly decomposing in our compost pile since). The other supposed benefit is that they are supposed to help aerate the laundry and help it dry faster. When using mine, I noticed no positive difference except when drying thick duvets, or many towels at the same time.

In recent years, the new warning is that these balls actually cause more wear on your textiles and cause them to age faster, making wool balls less-ecofriendly than previously believed.

Another argument against them being eco-friendly would include the emissions, environmental damage caused by sheep themselves, water use, and pollution caused by the sheep industry.

Stain Removal

Stain removal might not sound like an eco-issue, but since many clothes are only worn a small number of times before being discarded, we can help reduce our impact simply by taking proper care of our clothes to help extend their lives. Using food-grade ingredients to remove stains will not only save you money, but will also pose less of a health risk to you, your family, and to waterways.

These are methods we have tried and found to work very well. They use simple, non-toxic ingredients. 

Warning to Grey Water Users: Ingredients like salt and baking soda might not be appropriate if you use grey water for your garden, as salts disrupt soil health.

Blood

Use this method as soon as possible. Wet blood may come up with just cold water and no other ingredients, but dry blood might not respond well to the method. If the stain has been washed already (especially with hot or warm water) then this method might not work at all, as the stain is already set.

You will need: 

Find the blood stain and run it under cold/cool water, or dip it into a bowl or sink of cold water. See if some of the blood comes out, and rinse till no more will come out. Then stop the water flow (if you tap is running) and drain away the bloody water. Spread the fabric out so your stain makes a flat(ish) surface, then sprinkle salt or baking soda into the stain. Use both hands to hold either side of the stain, and rub the fabric together using the salty paste as if it is soap. If you unfold the fabric to check the paste, you should see that it is pulling out the stain and absorbing the colour into the paste. As the paste gets darker, rinse it away, and add more salt or baking soda if needed until the stain is gone (just enough to cover the stain visibly each time), which usually takes 1-3 attempts depending on how bad the stain is. Finish by giving the fabric one last cold rinse, then dry or wash normally with other laundry.

Chocolate

Chocolate is one of those things that easily fixes to fabric if you just wash it normally, pretreating the stain before washing will help keep your fabrics good as new! When you first get your stain, try to pick off any chocolate, but be careful not to rub it in or smear it.

You will need:

Combine a 1:1 ratio of cold or cool water and white vinegar into your container of choice. Find the stained section of fabric, and dip just that section into the solution. You might want to agitate the solution a little with your fingers, but make sure to wash your hands after. Set an alarm or timer for 10 minutes for soaking. After 10 minutes, rinse your fabric with plain water. Continue to care for your item as usual.

Other Helpful Tips and Tricks

Low-Waste Detergents & Supplies

This section is for finding eco-friendly and low-waste detergents or related supplies, organized by region. If you can't find what you need here. Check out our listing of zero-waste shops as these may have bulk/refill soaps and detergents.

Asia

India