[GJM] Fw: [globalnetnews-summary] The rumble in the tumble: Fight for the right to dry

[mary rose]

Hi Everyone, We need to pay more attention to what
we can do as consumers to get things back into their
natural order.  And every little thing counts

I read the other day on the National Resources Defense
Council (www.nrdc.org/ website that if all of us just replaced
a couple light bulbs in our homes with the new energy-saving
bulbs, it would equal taking 8 million cars off the road.annually.

So, this movement to use clotheslines rather than dryers
is to be applauded and supported.  AND in conjunction
with it, we need to emphasize the importance of giving
up conventional laundry detergents that destroy our
environment and use only "ecosafe" products.  .

I use either ECOS (see www.ecos.com), or Trader Joe's
pH balanced Liquid Laundry Detergent marketed exclusively
through Trader Joe's -based outlets in Califoria.

53 oz.of either will do approximately 26 loads of laundry
depending upon load size.  And, the price is right.  .

I found an online comment on ECOS:

<"J F. says:
You really need to try ECOS. It is amazing! It is ALL plant based and has a 
soy based softener so no need for softener/dryer sheets. It really cleans 
better than any other detergent I have ever used! You can also buy it at 
Costco now in the 210 oz. bottle. You can also use it for HE washers and 
only need 1 oz! It is so safe for my sensitive skin and my friend uses it 
for her 9 week old baby! She really loves it. This stuff is great and really 
is ALL natural. I am skeptical of so called natural detergents when they 
don't put all the ingredients on the back. ECOS has them right on the 
bottle!" >

I agree with the "cleaner than any other detergent" comment. And now knowing 
about Costco having the larger size, I may purchase this product there. This 
large size would last me over a year and be a more "eco-friendly" purchase 
since this product comes in plastic containers and any way to reduce the use 
of plastic is a good move.  The manufacturer will sooner or later need to 
replace the container with a more environmentally-friendly one. And, as 
consumers, we need to let them know this.  Info from the NRDC website 
informed me that most of the plastic manufactured is ending up in the ocean 
where sooner or later it breaks up to become "shards" which are swallowed by 
marine life either killing or injuring them.   .  .   .

Needless to say, I do not use a clothes dryer and love the fresh clean smell 
of air-dried laundry.  And, I feel that people who object to the sight of 
clean laundry on a neighbor's line are a little unbalanced.

I have also used Seventh Generation products.
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/Free-and-Clear
which are available scent-free for those with sensitivity
issues.  I use this brand of dish detergent.

Now on to the message about why it is important to give
up dryers. And, it certainly is time we called these consumer
purveyors, Martha Steward and Ophra Winfrey to account.
as is suggested here. Although their sponsors are certainly
not going to like it.

with love and in gratitude for all that we do together, .

mary rose

We must be the change we wish to see in our lives.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GlobalCirclenet" <webmaster at globalcircle.net>
To: <globalnetnews-summary at lists.riseup.net>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 7:30 AM
Subject: [globalnetnews-summary] The rumble in the tumble: Fight for the 
right to dry



"We want Martha [Stewart] and Oprah [Winfrey] to make the clothesline into a 
pennant of eco-chic," he said, "instead of a flag of poverty".


The rumble in the tumble: Fight for the right to dry
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-rumble-in-the-tumble-fight-for-the-right-to-dry-814069.html

What could be more environmentally friendly than hanging out your laundry in 
the fresh air? Yet a growing global movement that advocates doing just that 
has met outrage in America from those who want to keep their neighbourhoods 
knicker-free. David Usborne reports

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

I have been meaning to have a word with my next-door neighbour in the 
upstate town where I have a small weekend home. A perfectly amiable retired 
gentleman - he used to work in the local match factory until it closed - he 
will insist on hanging his laundry in the garden. From our deck, we can 
almost read the labels on his yellowing boxers. And let me tell you, he does 
not shop at Calvin Klein.

Bud's line is one of those double fraying cords stretching the length of his 
sloping garden with pulleys at each end which squeak whenever he attaches a 
new load. Hasn't he heard of tumble-dryers? I mean who hasn't in this day 
and age? At Christmas, I was almost tempted to buy him one.

Is it possible, though, that it's me who needs bringing up to date, not Bud? 
It's taken me a while to notice, but a movement is stirring all across North 
America to reinstate the venerable clothesline and ditch the dryer. The 
clothes-peg is making a comeback (not plastic, please, but those sturdy 
wooden ones with springs your mother used to collect). The reason, of 
course, is concern about global warming.

The drive to reinstate the clothes lines is suddenly getting a lot of 
people's attention. Saturday, believe it or not, was "National Hanging Out 
Day" in the US and it was not an invitation for kids to assemble at the 
shopping mall. (They do that anyway.) It was about damp whites and was the 
brainwave of an advocacy group based in New Hampshire called Project Laundry 
List. For its motto it borrows from Benjamin Franklin. "We must all hang 
together or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

Its mission is to educate. With our harried existences, most of us do not 
think twice about using whatever labour-saving devices are at hand. Tumble 
dryers certainly fall into that category. But most of us are beginning to 
worry also about what we can do in our own homes to reduce our so-called 
carbon footprint. In this country, households count for about a quarter of 
all the greenhouse gases wafting into our atmosphere. It is why, in a fit of 
eco-piety, I recently switched to green-generated electricity for my 
Manhattan apartment. Joining Bud, not beating him, may have to be my next 
step. Project Laundry List will tell you that dryers account for about 6 per 
cent of energy consumption in a typical American home, just behind fridges 
and lights. Use them regularly and they will generate emissions roughly 
equal to driving five cars.

Changing to green electricity means paying a bit more on your monthly bill. 
Resurrecting the clothes-line should be appealing because it implies no 
additional monetary costs. How many other opportunities do you see out there 
for cutting your carbon footprint substantially for free? "A clothes line is 
not a solar panel or a Prius," notes Alexander Lee, the founder of Project 
Laundry List. "It's something that everyone can afford." It will cost you 
time of course, but fresh air is good for you and your clothes.

But the Right to Dry movement, as it has been named, is meeting resistance. 
In fact, it has detonated warfare in many communities. In the red corner is 
the smattering of homeowners across the land who have seen the error of 
their tumble-drying ways and are erecting either lines or those 
umbrella-like contraptions that were once popular in Britain.

In the blue corner are their neighbours who consider knickers in the wind a 
blight. For these people (yes, I was one of them), seeing clothes on a line 
somehow denotes poverty and an absence of sophistication. It's a class 
thing. Neighbourhoods with washing in the gardens are not nice 
neighbourhoods. Heavens, it could even be lowering the values of the homes 
all around them.

Not helping is the fact that for many in this country, their home is not 
exactly their castle. Nearly 60 million Americans live in communities, 
usually called housing associations, where occupying a unit - whether 
apartment, row-house or even detached house - means also accepting a range 
of regulations regarding upkeep and general appearances, such as lawn-mowing 
and paint colours. Most of these associations also impose a strict 
no-clothes-line rule. But inside these associations rebellions are starting 
to erupt. In Concord, New Hampshire, for instance, there is the case of Mary 
Lou Sayer, a grandmother in her 80s who sought permission to begin hanging 
out her clothes in the assisted-living complex she calls home after hearing 
a talk by Mr Lee. She was turned down and for now suspends her dripping 
smalls from her dining-room light fixture and opens the windows. She is 
considering hanging a line outside anyway in protest. "Most of my friends 
are taking environmental issues seriously," she says.

Then there is Susan Tayler, 55, who faced legal action from her association 
in Bend, Oregon, after deciding to ignore its no-clothes-line rule. She sent 
the association a pleading letter asking it to change the rules to "reflect 
our urgent need and responsibility to help global warming by encouraging 
energy conservation". After she was also turned down, she tried screening 
off her newly erected line with fabric so the neighbours would be less 
offended. But it didn't help and the threat of legal action remained. Today, 
she dries her clothes in her garage with the doors open.

But Mr Lee believes that the logic of switching off the tumble dryer will 
eventually prevail against the Nimby forces of not in my - or rather your - 
back yard. Partly, he says, it is about changing popular perceptions. 
Clothes lines need to be seen as acceptable once again, even praiseworthy. 
"We want Martha [Stewart] and Oprah [Winfrey] to make the clothesline into a 
pennant of eco-chic," he said, "instead of a flag of poverty".

His group is also spearheading an effort to persuade state and local 
legislatures to pass laws overriding individual housing association rules. 
Pro-clothes line laws are now pending in Vermont, Connecticut and Colorado. 
One was also tabled in New Hampshire but was recently thrown out in 
committee.

One of the sponsors of the Vermont effort is the state senator, Dick 
McCormack. He knows it may be an uphill effort. "People think it's silly, 
but what's silly is to worry so much about having to look at your 
neighbours' undies that you would prevent them from conserving energy. We're 
not making a big deal over clothes lines; we're making a big deal over 
global warming."

Suzanne Harvey, a New Hampshire lawmaker and author of the failed initiative 
to override anti-clothes-line regulations, lives in a housing association 
herself in Nashua and complains that even shaking a rug on her patio is 
forbidden. "We all have to do at least something to decrease our carbon 
footprint," she said. "And once you start seeing your nice neighbours 
hanging clothes lines that can take down stereotypes."

Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, 
representing housing associations across the country, accepts that the drive 
for ecological responsibility is worthy but opposes turning the issue over 
to state politicians. Leave it in the hands of the associations and the 
residents, he says. "If you imagine driving into a community where the yards 
have clothes hanging all over the place, I think the aesthetics, the kerb 
appeal, and probably the home values would be affected by that, because you 
can't let one homeowner do it and say no to the next."

For now, just two states, Utah and Florida, have laws on the books 
specifically protecting the right of homeowners to flaunt their smalls in 
the garden. How much longer it will be for one of the initiatives to find 
favour is hard to say. But there is encouraging news from just across the 
border where the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, just last Friday 
introduced a law that precisely overrides the ability of housing 
associations to ban clothes lines. "There's a whole generation of kids 
growing up today who think a clothes line is a wrestling move," the Premier 
said. "We want parents to have the choice to use the wind and the sun to dry 
their clothes free."

Mr McGuinty took the action partly in response to a petition from Phyllis 
Morris, the Mayor of Aurora, Ontario, who had been made aware that numerous 
ecologically conscious residents in the town were chafing at clothesline 
restrictions. She took up their cause without a moment's hesitation. "If we 
can't change simple stuff like this, we'll never handle the big things we 
need to do for the planet," she said of her petition which declared the 
clothes-lines bans a "barrier to conservation". "People say, 'Oh, Phyllis, 
you want to turn women back into the laundry lady', and I say, 'Wrong: this 
is about rights. It's about the environment."

Recently, I was tempted to try out a new brand of washing powder from Tide 
that promises a "clean breeze" scent, described as "the fresh scent of 
laundry line-dried in a clean breeze". How daft is that? As far as I know, 
there is not a thing to stop me from junking the tumble-dryer upstate. Which 
means I have no excuse but to knock on Bud's door and borrow some pegs.