How often should you wash your clothes? Doctors don’t really know, but the decision is more cultural than medical, anyway. Worried about leaving the house in sweaty shirts or stained shorts, people often chuck clean clothes in the laundry basket after wearing them just once.
But the urge to avoid whiffy garments carries a climate cost that has largely been ignored. New research shows that feelings of disgust and shame encourage excessive clothes washing even among those who care about their carbon footprint.
Now - to appeast the Greens - we should go without washing clothes?!
Swedish scientists surveyed a representative sample of 2,000 people and found that when asked, in effect, to air their dirty laundry, their fear of being seen as unclean overpowered environmental identities.
Well, can I say, 'Thank goodness!'. Morning Tube commute is stressful enough, what with the stale cannabis stench and the appparently huge number of ethnic minorities who haven't yet assimilated enough to apply a can of Sure in the mornings.
Though that's more of an issue in high summer, and are we even going to get one of those this year?
Klint and his colleague knew from previous research that many people do not link their laundry to the environment, despite washing machines draining energy and water. After seeing that studies to alter habits had mostly failed, the researchers decided to explore the societal dimensions that make people overwash clothes. They found a high sensitivity to disgust, shame or violations of cleanliness norms was associated with frequent use of washing machines. They found no such effect for environmental beliefs.
I think to swallow the enviroMENTALISM cult's offerings, any sense of disgust must necessarily be absent.
Fast fashion has long been under fire from sustainably minded shoppers, but wasteful washing practices have so far escaped much attention. The average European household does four to five loads of laundry a week, and though the frequency of washing has stayed steady for 20 years, the size of the machines’ drums has grown.
So be warned, they aren't going to stop at your car, they are coming for your washing machine next!
5 comments:
An environmental ditty about when to flush the toilet:
If it's yellow, let it mellow.
If it's brown, flush it down.
Strangely most politicians and activists won't go there...
I recently visited Beamish Museum and the subject of dolly tubs and poshers actually entered the conversation. Wife's mum in her mid eighties remembers using them. Growing up in the 1960s I can remember seeing them kicking around in grandparent's houses but nobody was using them by then. I can remember top loading washing machines with a wringer on the back and also twin tubs. I can remember my mother having a weekly wash day. These greens seem to have little idea what life was like before modern washing machines became common. They won't be happy until we are back to bashing clothes on rocks by the river.
Stonyground
"Now - to appeast the Greens - we should go without washing clothes?! "
The Greens have been doing it since greenism began
I can remember my mother using a gas fired copper to wash clothes back in the 50s. The 'copper stick' (a well used and bleached wood 2 ft long (pre metric)) was used to 'agitate' the clothes.
Perhaps we should follow the examples of the obnoxious sh*ts near where I live, by walking into a clothing store and walking out with an armful. Pay for them? Don't be silly.
Penseivat
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