When it's not raining, Sandeep Sandhu dries his clothes in nature's free dryer: the wind and sun.
In his Newport Road home, Sandhu lives with six family members and they use a 25-ft rope tied in the backyard to dry their laundry.
Since the family is big, they have a heavy load at least three times a week. Putting the clothes out to dry leaves them fresh and crisp, and also saves electricity and money, Sandhu said.
It reduces their carbon footprint, a fact that the family says it never really factored into their domestic activity. Whereas some apartment and condo complexes ban clothes lines for their shoddy appearance, the Sandhu family said aesthetics was never a question.
If anything, the family was trying to follow a cultural tradition.
"We came to Canada five years ago but we used to dry out clothes outside in India. So, we just kept that going," said Sandhu.
Sandhu's is one of several South Asian families in Squamish who have no aesthetic qualms about putting clothes outside to dry. Although washing machines and dryers are slowly coming into developing countries like India, an entire generation of people are used to drying clothes outside. And in transplanting a cultural tradition, they might be helping the environment more than they realize.
According to B.C. Hydro's website, dryers use the most electricity of home appliances second only to refrigerators. Five dryers produce about the same amount of emissions as an average-sized car and on average, it costs about 30 to 40 cents per load to operate, according to Project Laundry List, a U.S. based organization striving to make drying laundry outside acceptable.
To prevent the heating of the planet, household emissions have to be cut drastically since they make a quarter of the total emissions in developed countries, according to Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University.
The institute also found out that at least third of the carbon savings in the residential sector comes from small, behavioural changes.
Chamkaur Sidhu's already made that small change.
Outside his Third Avenue home, he's put up a 40-ft wire, and there's rarely a sunny day when laundry can't be seen hanging in the backyard.
"Some people might find it ugly, but we will keep putting them out because it saves us money," he said.
And they have the law on their side. Squamish has no by-law preventing people from having laundry lines. It follows similar thinking seen in 2008, when Ontario squashed a law that prevented people from airing their clothing outside to dry.
There's nothing ugly about clothes hanging out and this attitude needs to be changed, said Ana Santos, Squamish Climate Action Network co-ordinator.
"Washing our clothes in cold water and hanging them outside to dry should not only be acceptable but it should be encouraged behaviour," she said.
Tips for people on saving energy
When choosing a new washer, make sure it's front-loading and it bears the logo Energy Star for energy efficiency - you will be using 50 per cent less water and energy, and saving quite a few bucks a year at the same time.
Ninety per cent of the energy used by washing machines goes into heating the water. Wash your clothes in cold water whenever possible.
Reduce the number of times you run the machine by always waiting until you have a full load.
Hang your clothes out to dry, but if you need to use a dryer, include a couple of dry towels with your load - this will shorten dry time and absorb a lot of the moisture. If the clothes load is too large, remove some of the load and restart the dryer - this will improve energy efficiency.
More tips at www.thedailygreen.com
