You can also sign up through our Facebook group or on our website to take the Million Solar Dryer Pledge. We want the government to keep better statistics so that we know how many Americans use a clothesline to dry 80% or more of their clothing.

I use my clothesline 95% of the time. What do you do?

I have been hanging all my clothes to dry outside in order to reduce my carbon footprint (hardest when it is cold!)... There is a clothesline behind my apartment building.  But my dark yoga clothes started getting all these white lines on them.  I thought maybe it was too much soap but it wasn't.  It seems to be lightcolored lint that the washer leaves in lines.  I was having to go over all my clothes painstakingly by hand to remove these... not worth the trouble/took forever.  Any solutions?  How to avoid these? Thanks!  Karen

An ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk. -Vivekananda

Karen,

They make polycoated wire clotheslines. Maybe you could replace your cotton line and get different results. Try the Cord-O-Clip which puts the clothespins on for you!

People who don't dry their sheets and towels on the line, because crunchy is not their style should try a half cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle. Apparently, the clothes don't smell like vinegar (white, not balsamic, people!). I have not tried it out, because I find the stiff towels and sheets remind me of my youth. Did not know there was another way...

Alexander Lee
Executive Director
Project Laundry List

There are many reasons why solar driers - I mean clotheslines - don't work for everybody. Home owner's associations are the worst. People sensitive to allergies can't handle it sometimes.

But here on the beach at latitude 26 we dry all our bathing suits and towels in the shade of the porch with no problems. That saves a few loads a week right there, especially if kids or company visits. We also have a line in the garage and the bathroom, such as for the wife's clothes that would get ruined by tumbling them.

But when the sun is strong and full, it will fade anything out there - great for whites but not the colors. Also with those super skin diving suits and thin "spring shirts" you can't leave them in the sun. So we do our drying in the shade, works fine.  -sammie

Onward through the fog

I admit to being quite shocked when I read this post.  I had no idea that dryers were so ubiquitous over there, and hanging out clothes is banned !?!  I live in the UK, and I don't know the stats (I don't think anyone has ever thought to compile them), but of all the people I know (and I know quite a few), only one person uses a dryer for personal clothes drying, and then only in the winter.  
I know a hairdresser who has one in the salon to dry the towels and a cleaner who uses one to keep cloths and towels dry.  Everyone else either hangs out in the summer or uses maidens and radiators in the colder months.
I think there are a couple of major reasons why we don't use dryers like you guys over the pond -
a) they are really expensive to run
b) we don't have room in our kitchens for another appliance
Line dried clothes smell great, even mine and I live in a city.  There is also something vaguely satisfying about hanging out first thing on a summer's day.
Sorry for all you who are not allowed to enjoy that, but I urge the rest of you to ditch the dryer and enjoy the freshness of clothes dried naturally.

Thanks, Alexander!  However, the lines aren't from the clothesline but seem to be from lint (which dryers remove usually but washers do't?).  Maybe if I washed dark and light clothes separately, the lines will leave- I will try that next... I usually just dump everything in together.  I also have been wearing clothes more than once, which reduces laundry amounts (underwear and socks just once though!)... Dry and crunchy laundry reminds me of my childhood too... and am now having a dry and crunchy seniorhood...

An ounce of practice is worth twenty thousand tons of big talk. -Vivekananda