Mom, the dryer ate my clothes again.

What drying you clothes really costs.

As a person in a family with 5 people, including two growing brothers, our family uses a lot of our appliances in our house. From, dish washers to showers to toilets to washing machines, our house uses those a lot. Our electricity bill just kept piling up and up and up. When our eighth grade science class announced that we would be doing a DOT (Do One Thing) project for a month, I got very excited. For a while, I was thinking of what to do for my DOT. I didn’t know what I was going to do, my older brother had taken shorter showers when he did the DOT, but I felt like that wouldn’t be a big change from my current lifestyle, seeing as I don’t take very long showers. I was thinking of what my family uses most, when I heard my dad complaining from the other room that he had to do a whole other load of laundry. Finally, I knew what I was going to do for my DOT.

For four weeks, I have decided to try and air dry my clothes to reduce the amount of energy we use and money we waste. My model dryer uses 1.2 kWh (kilowatts hours, kilowatts per hour) of energy. We get charged $0.11 per kilowatt. My clothes usually take up 1–2 loads per week. A website, explainthatstuff.com, has an article that talks about washing and drying your clothes. The website says, “ Outdoor drying: When you hang socks outside to dry, you’re using energy from the Sun and the wind to evaporate and disperse the water they contain. It’s free to dry your clothes this way and you’ll find it helps them last longer compared to using a tumble dryer. Since you’re not using electricity to get things dry, it’s better for the environment too.” Dryers use up a lot of energy and electricity, when you could be air drying your clothes to save all that energy!

Maybe you should try air drying your clothes for a month? Why don’t you do it with me?