Using the sun to dry things — pretty obvious, right?

The first order of business, if you haven’t already, start drying your washed laundry with the sun. Especially if:

• You live in the western half of the country (the air here is so dry, clothes dry themselves)
• You have room for a closet pole or rope near your washing machine. (Assuming of course you have a personal washing machine) We have a closet pole in the cove above our washing machine. It is quite easy to take clothes out of the washing machine, hang them, and put them away in the morning. If you have a washing machine in a basement, there is surely room to hang them to dry.
• If you have a fenced yard (so high strung neighbors would not see drying laundry) then you could put your wash in the sun to dry.

This is the low hanging fruit and all reasonable, applicable folks should be doing this unless they are using the dryer to “launder” their donations to Middle Eastern countries.  You may need to alter your behavior – for example, washing your work shirts on Thursday night so you don’t have 5 loads to do on Saturday.

Don’t feel guilty if you need the clothes dryer because (we can address some of the following later after the slackers get with the program):

• Your apartment does not have its own washer and dryer – you have to go somewhere less convenient to do it
• You live in the eastern (humid) part of the country
• You live in the west, have no room in the house, and no privacy from neighbors
• You dry your sox and underwear because handling all those small pieces are a hassle

We also recommend using the sun to dry fruits and vegetables. The setup can be quite simple as we show on another page.