National Hanging Out Day: History and 5 benefits of air drying laundry
National Hanging Out Day is celebrated each year on April 19. With this holiday falling in April, it's the perfect time of year to start doing your laundry outside. As a way to help the environment, National Hanging Out Day encourages everyone to use a clothesline or drying rack rather than an electric or gas tumble dryer. The day also aims to educate people about the advantages of air-drying clothing.
This day is celebrated to show support for environmental preservation and energy conservation. To mark the occasion, many people hang their freshly washed clothes out in the open.
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History of National Hanging Out Day
In 1995, a New Hampshire-based environmentalist group called Project Laundry List, founded by Alexander Lee, came up with the idea of National Hanging Out Day. Lee overheard Helen Caldicott speak at a symposium at Middlebury College about the advantages of air-drying laundry and cold-water washing. National Hanging Out Day was established in 1998, when Project Laundry List was still in its early stages.
CLEAN, a partnership of environmental organizations, is also a sponsor of National Hanging Out Day. The goal of National Hanging Out Day is to raise societal awareness about the benefits of dry lining—hanging clothing out to dry directly and using solar energy instead of electricity. When you choose open-air drying over dryers for your laundered garments, you will save money.
This initiative's primary goal is to raise social consciousness and encourage you to take better care of your garments while also caring for the environment.
5 Benefits of Air Drying Laundry
1) It's gentle on clothes: When clothing is tossed and thrown in a high-heat dryer, it can wear out, strain, and age your favorite clothing because the dryer removes all of the fuzzy parts of the fabric. Shirts and other items become thin and "threadbare." Air drying is, obviously, more gentle since there is no tossing or tumbling of clothes. It’s just the heat from the sun and the natural breeze.
2) It’s good for the planet: After the refrigerator, the clothes dryer is the second-most energy-consuming device. However, simply moving from using a clothes dryer to air-drying your clothing after washing them might save your home 2,400 pounds in carbon emissions each year. Less energy used means less coal is dug up and less gas is burned. That lowers carbon emissions and smokestack pollution.
3) It helps you save money: Air drying your clothes is far less expensive than purchasing a clothes dryer and dryer sheets. It's actually free! You save money by reducing the amount of electricity used to dry your garments.
4) It disinfects and whitens clothing: Water and damp laundry can be disinfected with the help of the sun's UV rays. Even lingering stains can be removed when it is dried on a clothesline. This is especially true if your detergent also contains a brightener, as the best laundry pods typically do.
5) It's beneficial to your health: When you line-dry your clothing, you spend a little more time in the sun and a little more time in the fresh breeze. You get to do some exercises like carrying, stretching, and bending, which are very beneficial to your health.