Over the weekend, I’ve managed to catch up with most of my washing – finally. As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been trying to discover more ways which hand washing benefits the environment and/or my clothes. An obvious benefit which I had not really thought about was that not using the washing machine or dryer saves electricity as well as saving water. A benefit which I have found for myself is that there is actually something quite satisfying about washing them; I’d never go so far as to say that it’s a stress relief/therapeutic.
I finally got around to doing a load of washing after dreading it all week. I’ve been thinking about my challenge and I wanted to try something different and try find out if there was any other ways which handwashing could benefit the environment further, and also my clothes. After a few quick google searches, I realised that using cold water would conserve even more energy. I already had known this fact, but it had never occurred to me to use it washing my clothes. I tried it and, honestly, it doesn’t make that big a difference. I thought it would’ve been much harder getting them properly clean or the detergent to lather but luckily that wasn’t the case. Even if I was to go back to using a washing machine, this challenge has made me realise that there are ways of using the machine that would impact the environment less; such as filling the rum to it’s maximum capacity to reduce the amount of loads that need to be done, or putting them on a cold wash rather than a hot wash if they don’t really need it.
Since my last blog post a couple of days ago, unfortunately I can’t say that the pile of washing has gotten any smaller – I know everyone was on edge wondering if I did it – nope! I’ve been thinking more about the principle of hand washing clothes and what difference was it actually making to my life or to the quality of the clothes. As I mentioned in my last post, whenever I did my washing, I did notice that there wasn’t as much ‘damage’ done to them after every wash. Having the blog and getting ideas from others has now made me realise that over time this decreased amount of damage may reduce the amount of clothes which I purchase and even save me some money along the way. To be honest, there’s really not that much that I can say about washing dishes; hence, why I haven’t mentioned it in many of my blog posts. I’m starting to find that I don’t really know what to write in these posts anymore but seeing everyone’s posts and comments on this little community is really pushing me to keep going with my challenge and inspiring new ideas!
This week I had hoped to further trial the African hand washing method but struggled to find the time. Time is something which I have mentioned in almost every post and it’s because it is hands down the biggest thing that I have been struggling with in this challenge. Now that assignments are starting to fall due and the number of readings to be done for college are beginning to build up, without a doubt its harder than ever to find the time; I even struggled to find time to write this blog post! To be honest, there’s just a huge pile of clothes starting to build up in the corner of my room an I’m dreading the thought of having to do it when I find the time. On a more positive note, I have definitely noticed the difference in my clothes. I have noticed that the quality of them hasn’t decreased as rapidly as it normally does using the washing machine and dryer. I think the dryer is more than likely the culprit here as it would normally cause my jumpers and tops to pill. I also think that the washing machine isn’t good for clothes as strings tend to get caught and pulled, damaging the clothes.
My last post made me think further about who actually has time for hand washing clothes. After a few quick google searches, it didn’t take long to realise that the majority of people who hand wash in their daily lives are generally the ones who don’t have a choice but to. It goes without saying that it is a common practice in poorer communities who can not afford or maybe have not even discovered these technologies which are available to our society literally, with the tap of a button.
I’ve linked a video to this post which shows how to wash clothes the African traditional way and it doesn’t look awfully complicated so I’ve set myself the challenge for the next time I do a wash, to try this method. While I was watching this video, it made me think about how many countries who are forced to hand wash clothes, generally have hot climates. In my head this flicked the switch of how much easier and quicker it must be for them to dry their clothes!
It’s been over a week now since I started my sustainability challenge and to be honest, I’m not finding it very easy to find the time to hand wash everything. I think that comes back to the point of habits; I’m so used to putting my clothes or dishes in a machine, pressing the on button, walking away to do my own things and then returning to deal with them later. It’s an autopilot response and growing up with these technologies to hand, I haven’t really known any different all my life. My family think I’m mad for putting so much time towards washing my clothes but I’m trying my best to succeed at the challenge. There’s no doubt it’s something very different from what I’m used to doing and lets just say I normally spend my days differently than spending twenty minutes scrubbing one jumper. This experience has definitely not been how I expected it to be at all and it’s not as easy as one would think to change habits that have grown stronger over the years.
My challenge of trying to reduce water when washing has left me pleasantly surprised as to how easy it was to find a detergent that is eco-friendly, biodegradable and all ingredients are mineral and plant based meaning they are renewable also.
A couple of challenges I have faced include making time to hand wash each individual piece of clothing separately and thoroughly; finding the space to wash them and also finding an effective method of drying them in my student accommodation.
In relation to washing dishes, it took me a day or two to come up with the idea of allowing the dishes to pile up and wash them all in one go (once again using an eco-friendly washing-up liquid), instead of using 3-5L of water 3-4 times a day. So far it’s been going well!
I didn’t think I’d be able to find the time to put my words into practice, but it has been going well despite the busy college life, and that is definitely something that took me by surprise.
The challenge I have chosen to take on is to reduce my water wastage, especially in relation to washing clothes and dishes. This is something I have wanted to do for a while as in recent years I have become more aware of water wastage; specifically during the rare, but extreme weather conditions Ireland has experienced in the past number of years. The heatwave of Summer 2018 brought this issue to light for me, particularly as I come from a farming background, we really saw the effects of water shortages in our local community. Since then, I have aimed to reduce my water wastage but have never succeeded as I wanted to. I have a bad habit of leaving the tap run while washing dishes etc. so I aim to correct this in particular. Also, the average washing machine uses approx. 50 litres of water per cycle so I also hope to reduce my use of washing machines where possible and hand wash clothes using environmental friendly detergents.