Families are turning back the clock and pegging out their washing to save money - and the planet.A leading supermarket has seen a 1,400% increase in the sale of pegs in the first four months of 2007, compared with a year ago. Sales of washing lines and rotary dryers are up by 147%.
The move appears to reflect a desire to reduce reliance on tumble dryers, which use huge amounts of energy, so contributing to the release of carbon and climate change.
The greater reliance on hanging out the washing this year probably reflects the long, warm, dry spell in April, which may itself be a consequence of global warming.
The switch back to traditional washing lines is being promoted by the Energy Savings Trust and councils across the country. Every use of a tumble dryer generates some 1.5kg of carbon dioxide - enough to fill 150 party balloons.
Using a tumble dryer for every wash will be responsible for emitting about 140kg of CO2 a year, and could cost more than £70 a year.
A trend to reduce the energy involved in doing the laundry has already seen a decision by Marks & Spencer and Asda to reduce the temperature recommendation for washing their clothes from 40 to 30 degrees.
Asda sold more than 1.2million clothes pegs from January to the end of April, up 1,400 % in a year.
2 comments:
Yeh, sure! I live in the Highlands. We have a saying here, that if you can't see across the loch it's raining - and if you can see across it's going to rain. I'll stick to the tumble dryer.
A bit like the saying ... "You can tell it's Summer, coz the rain's warm!" ?
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