Laundry is on France’s green energy revolution hit list. But how long can you really wear your gym clothes? | Peter Goers

Laundry limits are the latest green dream out of Europe. But are we really washing our active wear too often, writes Peter Goers. Have your say.

I wash my bedding at least three times a year whether it needs it or not. And I eat every meal in bed.

I don’t use a clothes dryer. That is the most expensive domestic appliance. It burns money and it stresses clothes.

Living in an apartment you are not supposed to dry your washing on the balcony but I often do (shhh … don’t tell the strata committee). I use a trusty clothes horse.

To err is human and it’s also OK, I suppose, to use the dryer. I imagine that busy households need to. In the dead of winter I use the dryers for my towels at the laundromat. It’s an outing and it’s a nice way to meet people and catch up with the news from five years ago by reading dog-eared magazines left there.

I prefer scratchy towels to fluffy towels. Do you?

HAVE YOUR SAY IN THE COMMENTS

I’m stuck with a front-loading washing machine which requires a lot of bending over. Joan Rivers once said: “I only bend over if there are diamonds on the floor.”

I’d love a top-loader but the configuration of my laundry disallows same.

Dammit. I never use my dishwasher so I keep books in it and I also store things in my unused clothes dryer.

The best washing machine I ever owned was a top loader with a glass top. I’d stand there watching the washing. It was hypnotic and much better than most TV.

The reason for this thrilling laundry reverie is the news that the French government has issued laundry edicts. It suggests that the French can wear their jeans up to 30 times before washing them and bras for seven days.

The French are advised they can wear their sports clothes or active wear thrice before washing.

I never wash my active wear because I don’t have any. I only have inactive wear.

The French want too save electricity and water and save the planet.

Disappointed woman finds her smartphone in the washing machine after washing clothes; household appliances at home generic

The world’s laundry releases 62 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, so it does make sense to use a washing machine wisely and the dryer only in emergencies.

It’s probably better to smell than to send us all to a global warming hell.

Of course, we could all go down to the Torrens or a nearby creek and wash our clothes by beating them against wet rocks as (mainly women) of yore did.

Laundry is less gendered than it was. It was once women’s work. Washing machines were a blessed female liberation and “guess who’s mum has a Whirlpool?”.

However you wash clothes it involves diffusiophoresis and diffusioosmosis – big words for the chemical process of water flushing out dirt.

Remember the copper in the wash house? Not a policeman, but a copper barrel in which clothes were boiled and agitated with a copper stick.

The washboard and the mangle were useful as were starch, big bars of Velvet soap and blue bags.
Mum trundled the washing out to the line in a cane basket, often on a trolley replete with a bag of dolly pegs.

The horizontal clothes line stretched across the back yard and was held up by clothes props. Later that great national emblem the Hills Hoist became ubiquitous and doubled as a merry-go-round, or could be draped with an awning on festive occasions.

A clement, windy day was always best for the washing and Monday was washing day.

You never left your clothes on the line at night for fear of snowdroppers – miscreant pervs who filched ladies’ underwear.

Nowadays backyards are often too small for clotheslines, hence the overuse of the clothes dryer.

We are all nostalgic for the Hills Hoist. Fifty years ago during Cyclone Tracy one Darwin family lost everything but their Hills Hoist survived untouched.

Washing is the only chore I like. I use those nifty detergent capsules, Napisan and a spritz of Pine O Cleen.

The Romans washed their clothes in urine. Thankfully, wee don’t have to.

HOT/NOT

HOT

The glorious Power and even the Crows have lifted their game at last.

Even Andrew Bolt is toey with Trump.

The Edith Trilogy by Frank Moorhouse. Great Oz lit.

Eating fish’n’ chips at the beach at sunset.

Gluttony – the best of the Fringe variety show

NOT

Five years of Covid

Our rented pandas cost $14,615 a week while so many people do it tough.

Originally published as Laundry is on France’s green energy revolution hit list. But how long can you really wear your gym clothes? | Peter Goers