Clothesline week

Get out the clothespins! June 3-10 is International Clothesline Week.

Drying your linens and clothes outside on a line at this time of year is the best. With a little effort you can save a whole lot of energy and enjoy the fresh smell and softness of line-dried linens, too. The dryer is a gas-guzzling household appliance, using more than 6 percent of household energy.

There are so many benefits to drying outside: saves money, reduces carbon footprint, less fabric wear, no shrinkage, less wrinkling, no static cling, quiet, free disinfecting and bleaching from the sun, no risk of over-drying or dryer fires, and great for linens and fabrics not meant for the dryer.

Why then do only 5 percent of Americans air-dry their clothes? In every other industrialized nation the figure is over 50 percent!

In celebration of clotheslines everywhere — in backyards, on rooftops, at campsites, and even crossing high above city streets — here are some breezy thoughts:

🧺 Clotheslines are functional art and a symbol of home, warm recollections of the people in our lives who have used them

🧺 It is the movement of walking outside, of responding to the whims and whorls of nature, of being present to this place

🧺 Increasingly the clothesline is a sign of freedom — the freedom to resist patterns of consumption that are fueling the world’s ecological crisis

🧺 Your clothes will smell of spring air, of summer sunshine, of fall frosts

🧺 Beautiful and proud, art installations with clothes, the flags of our life