Doing the Laundry in Loving Relationship

Who would have thought that doing the laundry could be so fraught with ethical decision-making? Yet, if you have been trying to do your best by people and planet you may relate to my quandary this morning. It all centres around the Sunday laundry and the need for clean, dry school and work clothes before launching back into a busy week.

The problem began really because I hadn’t planned it terribly well. I put the wash on early to try to maximise the chances of there being plenty of renewable energy in the UK electricity grid.^*1 However, the weather was that of a typical cold and wet January day. By the time I needed to dry the clothes, everyone would be waking up and putting on the kettle and Netflix. (Cue a bit of inner critic: “why did you not start this earlier?” “how awful is it to use the tumble dryer?” and so on). Fortunately, one of my new year’s resolutions is to be much kinder and compassionate to myself and so I decided to use it as an opportunity to do some research and to recognise that it’s much better to do what I can imperfectly, but consistently than to burn out, never to be seen again.

The dilemma? The tumble dryer uses both heat (the bigger energy cost) and motion, so it is among the higher carbon footprint appliances in the home. However, our home already has damp issues and a tendency for mould to appear. So I wanted to know whether it was better to put clothes on the radiator, use a clothes horse and dehumidifier or resort to the tumble dryer.

I want to pause here to acknowledge something important. Owning and running a tumble dryer or dehumidifier carries real costs – in energy use, in space, and in money – and not everyone can afford these appliances. Many people in the UK dry clothes on airers inside their homes and live with the very real health impacts of damp, mould, and insufficient heating.

For everyone reading this, whatever your circumstances, I want to hold this gently. No guilt, no shame, and no alarm. If you can’t afford these appliances, live in a very small home, or have limited choices, the chances are that your overall impact on the planet is already far lower than that of people with greater space, income, and flexibility.

What I discovered wasn’t a single ‘right’ answer, but a clearer sense of what each option actually does and what it asks of both the home and the people living in it.

Drying clothes on radiators

Drying clothes directly on radiators often feels like the lowest-energy option, because the heat is already there. But I learned that this isn’t always as benign as it seems:

• The clothes block the heat from heating the room
• Moisture from the clothes moves into the home environment and can add to mould and damp issues
• This moist air is harder to heat and so adds to the cost to heat the home
• There’s a bit of effort needed to distribute the clothes and gather them in again

In a house without damp issues, or for the occasional item, this might be fine. In our home, though, it felt like shifting the issue to a less visible place and potentially the need for costly redecoration and repairs later.

Using the tumble dryer

The tumble dryer still carries the highest direct energy cost, particularly because of the heat involved. I don’t want to gloss over that.

• A short or partial cycle removes a large amount of moisture quickly
• Used occasionally, it can prevent prolonged indoor humidity
• In some situations (eg, very wet loads, time pressure, or health constraints), it can be the least harmful option overall

At one point, I wondered whether we could live without a tumble dryer altogether. But there have been times when my family urgently needed clothes dried. Bedding, in particular, was where I most often reached for the dryer – not out of convenience, but because of space.

Sheets and duvet covers hold a lot of water, and most homes simply don’t have room to dry them without spreading moisture throughout the house. I found that either using a short tumble-dry before finishing on a rack, or occasionally drying them fully, was often the least harmful option overall.

Air-drying on a clothes horse with a dehumidifier

Using a clothes horse alongside a dehumidifier turned out to be a different kind of trade-off. It involves having a dehumidifier about a metre or two away from the clothes, ideally in a room where the door can be shut:

• The dehumidifier uses electricity, but much less than the energy needed to heat moist air
• It traps the moisture rather than it being spread around the home, so the damp and mould risks are reduced
• The clothes horse/airer and dehumidifier do take up quite a lot of space and are less easy on the eye
• There’s added effort in distributing clothes around the house and gathering them again

This option felt like caring for the house, my family and the wider world as a living system, not just managing laundry. It is the option I finally decided upon and I can tell you that the room is properly toasty as I am writing this!

A small but important discovery

I discovered too that using a fast spin on the washing machine to get most of the water out (if the clothes are robust enough for this) is by far the best way to reduce the need for the more energy-intensive heating in the drying stage.

Clothes, care, and longevity

It’s worth mentioning here that making clothes last as long as possible is a way we can help people and planet.

Clothing manufacture comes with real costs – from exploitative labour practices, to chemical pollution, microplastics, and the land and water lost to cotton farming. Washing and drying increase wear and tear, shortening a garment’s life. Sometimes, the most caring choice is simply to ask whether something really needs washing yet, and to choose gentler options when it does.

Holding it all together

Different homes, bodies, finances, and capacities will lead to different choices. None of these options is ‘pure’. All of them involve trade-offs.

Coming back to this Sunday morning, what has mattered most isn’t finding the most virtuous answer, but finding one that allows the week to begin without damp air, resentment, or self-reproach.

It’s a lovely thing to be able to turn the chore of laundry into a contemplation on self-care, family, home, community and how my clothes connect me to the wider ecology. Loving relationship, for me, means reducing harm, including to myself on a frazzled day and also choosing, whenever possible, to infuse even the mundane with care and connection.

^*1 A small aside (for the curious):
The UK electricity grid is a shared system. Electricity from wind, solar, gas, and other sources is mixed together, and the balance shifts throughout the day. Some people choose to run energy-intensive appliances at times when renewable generation is higher and the number of people using electricity is lower. (If you want to know more about timing your appliance use, there is the very handy NESO app and also the Energy Saving Trust website)