Green laundry

Making Occidental College more environmentally friendly is not just about policy change, it is also about teaching students new sustainable behaviors. One activity that can be modified in a green way is doing laundry. This is an activity that every student at Occidental participates in about twice a month. Doing laundry the green way can reduce the colleges energy and water usage. Here are some simple steps anyone can take to make doing laundry more environmentally friendly.

1. Try to always wash your clothes in cold water. Almost 90 percent of the energy is used to heat up the water (the other 10 percent is used to power the motor of the washing machine).

2. Always wash full loads. There are not different size settings on the washing machines at Oxy, so the same amount of water is used regardless of the amount of clothing. Always washing full loads can reduce the number of times you do laundry and save water.

3. Try air drying your clothes. Line drying will save a lot of energy and will make your clothes last longer. Line drying can also reduce wrinkles. I found a folding rack on target's website for only $ 20.00. For a less expensive method, I just use hangers around my room.

Most of the information I found about green laundry practices came from Pomona Colleges’ website for sustainable living in college. Their college has an excellent program to promote sustainability at an individual level. Each student is able to check out a foldable drying rack, an endless supply energy efficient light bulbs, and a small odorless composter. In terms of encouraging green laundry practices the college recently installed drying racks in every laundry room. While the website does not seem to be functioning many other colleges have started offering students personal foldable drying racks, such as the University of Missouri. Hopefully Oxy students can embrace doing laundry in an environmentally friendly way to help reduce energy use on campus.