Tuesday, May 29, 2007

30 days of sustainability

So Vancouver has been doing this 30 days of sustainability since April on the concept that if everyone that lived in the Vancouver area did one new thing off the list every day they would save enough power to take care of one town for one year. I am big on environmental issues and work very hard at doing my part. So I thought cool Keith and I will take part. Most of the things I was already doing like recycling everything possible, walking as much as possible, take transit instead of the car (which I did under great duress as I think everyone here knows how I feel about the idiocy of our transit system) and so on. One of the items on the list was to only use cold water to do laundry. Now I do that. Well almost do that. I only use hot water to do our whites. Keith wears white company t-shirts for work (why they do that when they are a construction company is beyond me!) and when he gets home they are dirty.

But I did it for almost a month now and I want to go on record as saying whites DO NOT get as clean in cold water as in hot water. Even with using Spray and Wash and bleach the clothes are still stained. Not as stained as when they hit the washing mashing but not Sally clean when they come out. I can not stand my clothes to have stains on them not even white socks. I take it as a reflection of me when my husband goes to work with a mustard stain on his T-Shirt.

So sorry Vancouver but I am going back to hot water just for my whites. It's called compromising. As soon as Keith starts making sure his food doesn't hit his shirts and he doesn't work construction wearing white t-shirts we will go back to cold water wash for whites in the meantime I will take transit twice as often to make up the difference. (And grumble under my breath the whole time!)

2 comments:

Carmen said...

Well, you do twice as much as I do! Sadly, I am not a big environmentalist. Yes, you may all flog me now. It started when I was in high school and my physics teacher said to us, and I quote, "IF you think recycling a bunch of pop cans and bottles is going to save this world, you are sorely mistaken...". Not the best role model. Yet that stuck. I am really good with making sure lights are off (I have all those funky energy saver bulbs in all my light fixtures, indoors and out) and computer is off and unnecessary appliances are unplugged. I too wash in cold water, but I do my whites in hot. You are right, they don't come "clean" in cold. But I have a long LONG way to go on this issue.

Easy as Epicure said...

hey Carm you do way more then you think.. way more then MOST people.. don't sell yourself short!