Go Green With Your Washing Machine

AN ONGOING LIST

by Marissa Zumbo, March 2021

There’s a lot of ways to be more eco-friendly in your laundry routine. Some of these tips and tricks may surprise you.

The Cheap Clothing Trend

In recent years, popular retailers have shifted away from clothes made of traditional fabrics, in favor of clothes made of less expensive synthetic fibers. While synthetic fabrics are lightweight, flexible, and moisture wicking, they also wear down quickly and cause greater environmental damage than traditional fabrics. Synthetics are typically petroleum derivatives and when washed, these fabrics release tiny microplastics that find their way into our rivers and oceans. No bueno. It’s best to spend a little more money on clothes that are made of natural fibers, such as cotton or wool. Your clothes will last longer, wash well, and you’ll help save the environment.

No More Wasteful Washers

It comes as a surprise to no one that a lot of water and electricity is used when washing clothes. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that the average load of laundry uses about 41 gallons of water. For context, the average shower only uses around 17. The best thing you can do is either wash your clothes by hand (which is way harder than it looks) or use energy efficient machines. A 4-load washing machine at Big Waves Laundromat takes only 22 mins to run and it accomplishes the equivalent workload of 4.5 man hours! Big Waves industrial washing machines use 75% less water and 68% less electricity than the average in-unit washing machine. Ditch your apartment’s washers in favor of a better and more environmentally friendly clean.

Space Efficient vs Energy Efficient

One sure fire way to reduce energy use with drying is to air dry your clothes. While that might be absolutely needed for pieces like leather jackets and rugs, it’s not a viable - or interesting - option for the modern consumer. Instead, choose dryers that are energy efficient. Today’s trend in dryers leans toward space efficiency, allowing dryers to fit into smaller spaces. However, space efficiency often means energy inefficiency, because you’ll need to run that small dryer 4 times to dry the same amount of laundry that you could in ONE dry cycle in an industrial XL dryer. Big Waves Laundromat dryers are optimized to fit 4.5 loads of laundry and take an average of 36 mins to dry. Compare this to a small in-unit dryer that fits only 1 load of laundry and takes 45 mins to dry. We’ll let you do the math there.

Space Efficient vs Energy Efficient

One sure fire way to reduce energy use with drying is to air dry your clothes. While that might be absolutely needed for pieces like leather jackets and rugs, it’s not a viable - or interesting - option for the modern consumer. Instead, choose dryers that are energy efficient. Today’s trend in dryers leans toward space efficiency, allowing dryers to fit into smaller spaces. However, space efficiency often means energy inefficiency, because you’ll need to run that small dryer 4 times to dry the same amount of laundry that you could in ONE dry cycle in an industrial XL dryer. Big Waves Laundromat dryers are optimized to fit 4.5 loads of laundry and take an average of 36 mins to dry. Compare this to a small in-unit dryer that fits only 1 load of laundry and takes 45 mins to dry. We’ll let you do the math there.