7 Benefits of an Eco-Friendly Laundry Routine

Keeping your clothes clean is a tedious, yet essential chore of modern living. Doing the laundry not only keeps clothes, towels, and sheets fresh, but it protects your skin by removing irritants and preventing the buildup of oils, sweat, and bacteria. Unfortunately, improper laundering can leave stubborn stains on your clothes – and on the environment.

Standard washing machines and dryers consume a lot of energy and water, but that’s not the only way your laundry routine affects the environment. Laundry wastewater is full of microplastics, toxic chemicals, and other pollutants, all of which are tough to filter out and often make their way into the environment. Fortunately, these environmental impacts can be drastically reduced by simply changing a few laundry habits.

Besides reducing the environmental impact of laundry, implementing an eco-friendly laundry routine comes with a host of benefits, from saving electricity to making clothes last longer. Whether you do your laundry at home or at your local laundromat, you’ll find that these benefits greatly outweigh the effort it takes to change your habits.

Photo by Megan Lee

The environmental impacts of laundry

Do you do laundry once or twice a week, or more? No matter how often you do laundry, it’s an activity that happens regularly enough to have a significant footprint associated with it. Besides consuming copious amounts of water and electricity, laundering clothes and other fabrics also results in water pollution.

Water and energy usage

Over the course of a year, the average American household does 300 loads of laundry, or about 6 loads per week. Considering that an average washing machine uses 19 gallons of water per load, that’s equal to 5,700 gallons of water.

While this may not seem like a lot, laundry accounts for roughly 17% of a household’s water usage. As sources of clean water are placed under more and more stress, reducing household water consumption is a key step to ensuring access to safe water.

Plus, washing machines and dryers consume a lot of energy. Depending on the model, a washing machine uses anywhere from 400 to 1,400 watts of energy to run a load, while a dryer uses between 1,800 and 5,000 watts per load. Over the course of a year, that can add up to hundreds of dollars in electricity costs – and that’s not counting the cost of laundry detergents or the machines themselves.

Besides the cost, there’s another real impact associated with laundry’s energy consumption: carbon emissions. Heating the water in a washing machine, running a load of laundry, and drying clothes in the dryer all consume energy. Unless your home’s energy comes from clean energy sources, such as solar panels, that energy likely comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which are largely responsible for heating up the earth’s atmosphere.

Water pollution

Unfortunately, water and electricity use aren’t the only environmental impacts of doing the laundry. For example, microplastics, toxic pollutants, and PFAS chemicals leach into the wastewater during washing, which can end up polluting our oceans or water supplies.

According to a recent study of microplastics in the ocean, it is estimated that nearly 35% of all microplastics found in the ocean come from the laundering of synthetic clothes and textiles. Similarly, PFAS chemicals, which are found on water-repellent and fire-resistant clothing, also end up in laundry wastewater, eventually making their way into the water supply. These forever chemicals have been connected to health risks including liver damage, thyroid disease, fertility issues, and even cancer.

But that’s not all. Laundry detergents and fabric softeners can contain toxic chemicals that are hazardous to human health and aquatic life. Because companies aren’t required to list ingredients on their products, this is an issue that often gets overlooked. Above all, fragrance chemicals are the biggest culprit, so consider choosing fragrance-free products next time you’re shopping for detergent.

Finally, while plastic-free detergents (such as laundry sheets) are becoming increasingly popular, mainstream laundry products still come packaged in sturdy plastic jugs and bottles that add to the growing plastic pollution problem.

7 benefits of green laundry practices

Where there’s a problem, there can also be a solution. We’re not going to tell you to stop washing your clothes, but there are ways to make laundry less of a burden on the environment. Small changes in your laundry habits, such as air drying clothes instead of using an electric dryer, can greatly reduce the environmental impacts of laundry.

In addition to the environmental benefits of reducing water pollution and saving energy, an eco-friendly laundry routine can help your clothes last longer, save you time, prevent home fires, and more!

Saves energy and money

Implementing small changes to your laundry routine has the potential to make a big difference over the course of a year, let alone a lifetime. There are many ways to save energy during laundry; for example, by replacing old laundry machines with more efficient ones, hang-drying laundry instead of electrically drying it, or using cold water instead of warm/hot water whenever possible (heating the water is responsible for about 90% of a washer’s electricity use).

Whichever strategies you choose to implement during your laundry routine, saving energy on laundry directly lowers your monthly electricity bill, resulting in considerable savings over time. For example, according to Energy Star, an energy-efficient washing machine can save you $550 over the course of its lifetime, while an energy-efficient dryer can save you $210, and even more if you opt for air drying instead. According to Consumer Reports, a washing machine or dryer lasts around 10 years on average.

Uses less water

More and more washing machines can sense the size of a load and adjust the water level accordingly, but the best way to reduce water usage is actually washing full loads and avoiding small loads of laundry whenever possible. While just one facet of household water usage, laundry is a good place to start saving water, and money!

Clothes last longer

Even though water and energy savings aren’t always tangible, there’s one benefit of green laundry practices that is: longer-lasting clothes! For starters, cold water is gentler on fabrics than hot water is, and tends to preserve color better.

Washing clothes less frequently (only when they need to be washed) not only saves water, time, and energy, but also protects the fibers from being damaged in the washer and dryer. Likewise, air-drying your clothes prevents shrinking and protects fibers from the harsh environment of an electric dryer, which means they’ll hold up better over time. 

Did you know? Dryer lint is mostly made up of fibers that are damaged and shed during the washing/drying process.

Prevents home fires

Speaking of lint, did you know that eco-friendly laundry practices can help prevent home fires? According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), approximately 4% of all home fires between 2010-2014 involved a washing machine or clothes dryer. Of those, approximately 27% were caused by dryer lint.

By air-drying more often and regularly cleaning dryers to remove lint, you can not only save energy and keep your machines running efficiently, but also reduce the risk of setting your home on fire.

Reduces microplastics in wastewater

Whereas clothes were once made primarily of natural fibers such as cotton, wool, and hemp, many of today’s clothes are made up of plastic fibers. Some examples of these types of fabrics include polyester, acrylic, and nylon.

The articles of clothing most likely to be made of these fabrics include stretchy leggings and athletic wear, but they can be found in all kinds of clothing. Unless you specifically shop for clothes made from natural fibers, it’s likely that a majority of the clothes in your closet include some amount of synthetic fibers. In fact, it's estimated that about 60% of all clothing is made from synthetic materials.

While these fabrics are super useful (for example by being lightweight, flexible, and affordable), the fibers they shed every time they’re washed or dried aren’t biodegradable. Instead, these fibers are a type of microplastic that get into the wastewater. Because they are rarely filtered out, they end up finding their way into the water supply, eventually making their way back to us.

Fortunately, we can reduce the amount of microplastics that shed from clothing and make their way into wastewater in a couple of ways. For example, wearing an item of clothing multiple times before it gets washed is a great way to reduce microplastics and extend the life of the article. Additionally, there are a few innovative products designed to help filter microplastics out of your laundry’s wastewater, such as the Cora Ball.

That said, there’s only so much you can do at home to combat microplastic pollution. It’s also up to clothing manufacturers to change the way they make clothing to reduce our reliance on plastic fibers in the first place!

Saves time

At first glance, it might seem like eco-friendly laundry practices are more time-consuming. While hang drying does take more time than simply tossing clothes in a dryer, other practices, such as consolidating loads, can save you precious time.

Washing in cold water means you can mix most fabrics, making it easier to consolidate loads into one big load. We still recommend washing bulky items like bath towels and bed linens separately to protect more delicate clothing. Likewise, ultra delicate fabrics, such as knits, should either be hand-washed or placed in a protective laundry bag during a gentle cycle.

Additionally, washing clothes only when they truly need to be washed is a good way to save even more time. This doesn’t mean letting clothes get super smelly; many clothes, such as jeans, can be worn many times before needing to be laundered. One notable exception: you should always wash clothes after working out to prevent the growth of bacteria.

If you don’t already have a system for “worn but not dirty” clothes, consider designating a section of your closet, or get a simple towel rack to prevent a pile of clothes from building up on your floor.

It’s good for you

Last but not least, doing laundry in a way that’s good for the planet also happens to be good for you. For example, avoiding detergents with fragrances and skipping unnecessary products such as fabric softeners reduces your exposure to toxic chemicals in laundry products.

Indirectly, you also stand to benefit from reduced amounts of PFAS chemicals, microplastics, and other toxic chemicals in the water supply.

Finally, hang-drying clothes outside when the weather allows is an opportunity to get outside, move around, and soak up some sunshine.

What is your favorite eco-friendly laundry practice? Let us know below!