April 5–18, 2021
MOUNT WASHINGTON — Of the many significant yet simple ways we can contribute to sustaining our local and world environment, the most immediate are to consume food primarily grown in our region and to sun dry our wash. Being a locavore supports the vitality of our landscape that includes a community of farmers who minimize the use of fossil fuels in production. The natural world is spared the abuses that result from the extraction, refining, and burning of oil and gas required for industrial agriculture, and to bring food to market by airplane, ship, and automobile. Likewise, line drying clothes minimizes or eliminates the purchase and burning of primarily fossil fuel to power clothes dryers. Clothes dryers have been described as a cultural phenomenon in America.
From Australia, Canada, Europe, and here at home, there is a clamoring in favor of sun-, breeze-, and even freeze-dried wash. Reject the uncivilized dryer noise in favor of stepping out into a sunny day under a clear blue sky. Line dry for the sun-dried fragrance, and to keep your clothing looking newer for longer. Lindsay Coulter, the Queen of Green at the David Suzuki Foundation, points out that, in addition to energy conservation benefits, “What you’re also not taking advantage of is the sun’s natural bleaching and antibacterial properties.”
Locally, for 30 years, Great Barrington’s Independent Laundry co-proprietor Cathy Torrico has urged that, after all else fails, hang stained wash in the sun. When I asked her advice recently about stubborn discoloration, she replied, “You know me…” The Independent Laundry, alas, was recently retired.
“There are 87 million residential dryers in the U.S. These clothes dryers account for 6 percent of residential electricity consumption, which is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumed annually by the entire state of Massachusetts (60 billion kWh per year). The annual cost of operating America’s clothes dryers adds up to about $9 billion. In 2014, Air Quality Ontario reported that one clothes dryer using 900 kWh hours of electricity each year results in up to 840 kilograms of air pollution — or roughly the equivalent of burning 365 liters of gasoline, nearly 100 gallons. Even though the first quote from Forbes, published in 2013 and the Ontario in 2014, are not current and do not include natural gas and propane, they do inform us of the need to recognize Earth’s primary energy source: to wake up to the sun every day.
Canada’s T8N Magazine reports that, 15 years ago, Toronto-area personal trainer and health coach Gary Drisdelle founded International Clothesline Week – June 5–11 this year – as a way to think about alternate sources of energy. “According to Drisdelle, more than 80 percent of households have a clothes dryer, so if every household let more clothes drip dry, it would not only translate into energy and dollar savings but also less pollutants into the air.”
Looking back over the year 2020, I observed that I dried my clothes and linens outdoors all year. I did not use the propane clothes dryer at all. Even on the shortest days of the year, with snow on the roofs and ground, sun drying was possible. My washable wool-base layers and outerwear (Ibex, Smartwool) seem to last forever. Along with a down vest or anorak worn indoors, energy is conserved close to our bodies, cutting down on fuels for heating.
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Berkshire Grown is the go-to resource for finding low carbon footprint foods grown and prepared in the Berkshire region and its environs. Pick up a copy of the Guide to Local Food and Farms in stores or download it here. Notice the new “Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook,” a guide to preparing the food grown in our neighborhood. Be drawn into the spirit and work of Berkshire farmers in the following 6-minute video:
Opportunities to Participate
Saturday, April 10: Berkshire Grown Farmers Market, Great Barrington
“The Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook: 125 Homegrown Recipes from the New England Hills” by
Elisa Spungen Bildner and Robert Bildner with Chef Brian Alberg (Countryman Press, 2020)
Resources
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April 05, 2021 at 11:01AM
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NATURE'S TURN: Solar power direct: low-carbon-footprint food, sun-dried clothes - theberkshireedge.com
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