Traditional laundry machines are notoriously wasteful, particularly when it comes to water and energy use. 

Did you know...

that 39% of a textile's environmental impact comes from consumer care?
That means you have more power than you think to reduce your impact.  

We'd love to share with you a few sustainability hacks to make your laundry more efficient and maybe push laundry day back in order to reduce waste.

Air your garments out overnight

Don't leave your worn garments on the floor or in a laundry basket because moisture, wrinkles and odors will set into them. Instead, as soon as you're finished wearing the garment, smooth out the fabric and then hang it in a place with good air circulation.

Spot clean whenever possible If you've gotten a spot or stain on your otherwise clean garment, don't wash it. Spot clean the fabric by dabbing the spot in water with soap or detergent and rub it gently with a sponge or toothbrush. Use distilled water on silk to prevent water stains. Hang dry.

Use a lint roller and fabric shaver

Your clothes look worn and dirty if they've got lint, hair or pills on them. Find a quality fabric shaver to keep for years and you can make any sweater look good as new. 

Steam instead of iron

Steamers are best to sanitize and soften garments. Not only will your clothes look fresh, but they feel fresh too. Many people are unaware of the damage their irons do to textiles. In smoothing out wrinkles, the iron is actually crushing the fragile fibers, causing irreparable damage to them and shortening their lifespan.
A steamer doesn’t crush the fibers to eliminate wrinkles; it simply relaxes them, resulting in a smooth, clean look without damaging any of your favorite clothes. This means the clothes or textiles you’ve invested in will last longer and stay beautiful - reducing to the massive environmental damage textile waste causes.

Ditch the bottles of detergent

There are so many types of detergent these days and some have less of an environmental impact than others. You can find detergent with eco-responsible packaging designed with intention to reduce single-use plastic and leave no trace on the environment. Laundry pods are sold in stores or can even be delivered to your door with subscriptions so you only get what you need. 

 

Laundry sheets are another alternative. Each laundry strip packs ultra-concentrated, hypoallergenic, eco-friendly cleaning power into a tiny, pre-measured strip of liquidless laundry detergent that you just toss in the wash. This makes your laundry washing chore easier, healthier, more economical and much kinder to our planet.

Use cold water whenever possible

Water isn't the only resource gobbled up in laundry operations. It takes a surprising amount of energy to heat the water used in traditional washing machines, and cold water is just as effective at disinfecting textiles. Cold washes help your clothes last longer (hot wears them out) and it uses 1/10th of the energy needed to run a hot wash!

Use sustainable detergent

Using the right laundry detergent not only plays an important role in sustainable use, but also delivers better results. With the wrong detergent, your clothes can appear dingy and dull. When your machine does not have enough water to interact with the detergent to fully wash the dirt off your garments, your clothes are left not looking their best. Since most detergents are not optimized to work in a low-water environment, and this can result in the unwanted dingy appearance in your laundry when you use an HE washer.

Hang dry as often as possible

For many households, the clothes dryer is the second-most energy-consuming appliance, right after the refrigerator. However, by simply switching from using a clothes dryer to air-drying your clothes after washing them, you could reduce your home’s carbon footprint by about $3,000 a year. 

Have you ever cleaned the lint trap in your dryer? The lint that is scraped off of a dryer’s lint trap after each load is visible evidence of the dryer shortening the life of your clothes. Even after using gentle, natural laundry pods to wash your clothes, they still get damaged in the dryer, especially if you’re unsure about the drying cycles you should use. 

Our goal is to reduce the consumption of natural resources in your laundry and textile care. By helping our customers reduce their environmental footprint while creating substantial cost savings in their laundry, we'll begin to change the conversation in laundry to focus on water conservation and ongoing sustainability.