Seventh Gen asks you to Line Dry

An interesting campaign recently launched by Seventh Generation challenged Americans to wash their clothes in cold water and line dry, for a month. I came across the campaign today in Elaine Wong's write up in BrandWeek.



It reminded me of how nice it was to live a bit simpler while I was abroad in Rome, Italy. There you have a small washer, but no dryer. As a rule, you try not to use a lot of electricity as a resident in Rome, and it was nice to be 'forced' to hang dry your clothes. The one thing that helped though, was that every tub had a pull out drying rack making it really easy to line dry your clothes in one of the bathrooms in the apartment. It also helped that the washers were small to begin with, and the dryer wasn't an option like I mentioned above. As a consumer in the US, I know that even if I took the Seventh Generation line dry challenge, I would eventually give in to at least a little fluff in the dryer of my stiff, line dried clothes.

With that said, it is a nice small step towards conservation that anyone can take. If not everyday, all month, but as a regular alternative - in mass that can make a great difference in energy consumption.