Washed Up 1

• 400 -- loads of laundry washed by a typical U.S. household in one year¹
• 35 billion -- loads of laundry washed every year in the U.S.²
• 74 -- percentage of U.S. households with washers and dryers³
• 7 -- percentage of washing machines replaced by U.S. consumers each year³
• 81,000 -- annual electricity consumption, in gigawatt hours, of U.S. washers and dryers³
• 33 to 50 -- percentage reduction in energy use by high-efficiency washing machines compared to conventional washers⁴
• 40 -- gallons of water used per full load of clothing in a conventional washer¹
• 18 to 25 -- gallons of water used per full load of clothing in a washer certified by Energy Star, a U.S. EPA and U.S. Department of Energy program¹
• 16,000 -- annual gallons of water used for clothes washing by a typical American household¹
• 7,000 -- gallons of water saved annually by using an Energy Star washing machine compared to a conventional washer¹
• 13 million -- annual metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from washers and dryers in the United States³
• 12 -- average capacity, in pounds of clothes, of both high-efficiency washing machines and traditional washers⁵
• 140,204 -- largest quantity of laundry, in pounds, ever washed in a nine-hour working day (by staff at Central Linen Service in Kilkenny, South Australia, May 18, 1989)⁶

Sources:
1. U.S. EPA, U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Star, December 2002.
2. Bodzin, Steven. "Revolution, Not Agitation: A New Spin on Clothes Washing," Home Energy Magazine Online, November/December 1996.
3. Shorey, Everett, and Tom Eckman. "Appliances and Global Climate Change," Pew Center on Global Climate Change, October 2002.
4. Soap and Detergent Association.
5. The Missing Sock Coin Laundry.
6. Canada Office of Energy Efficiency, "Did You Know?"

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