How you wash your clothes in the washing machine can make a big impact on the carbon emissions you are producing. You can save a quarter of a ton of carbon emissions person and save money with these tips below.

Loading the washing machine

The easiest way to reduce the carbon footprint of your laundry is to put in a full load of clothes rather than a half load. This means you will be using your washing machine a lot less.

Washing machine temperature

The next thing to remember is the temperature at which you wash your clothes. As you can see from carbon emissions calculated by Berners-Lee in ‘How bad are bananas’, a typical 8kg load of laundry produces the following carbon emissions:

330g CO₂e washed at 30 degrees Celsius, dried on the line.

540g CO₂e washed at 40 degrees Celsius, dried on the line.

590g CO₂e washed at 60 degrees Celsius, dried on the line.

2kg CO₂e washed at 40 degrees Celsius, tumble-dried.

2.1kg CO₂e washed and dried in a washer-drier.

The colder the temperature you choose to wash your clothes, the lower your carbon footprint will be because they require less energy for heating. As you can see from the above emissions for different washes, washing clothes at 40 degrees rather than 30 degrees nearly doubles emissions.

Line drying versus tumble-dried clothes

The biggest contributor to emissions in laundry is tumble-drying clothes. Washing and drying clothes in a washer-drier quadruples emissions. The most effective thing to do to keep carbon emissions down in laundry is to dry clothes on a line.

All these tips will not only reduce carbon emissions but will save money on water and energy bills.