UK public washing their clothes too often, says major laundry brand

17 pointsposted a year ago
by GeoAtreides
(theguardian.com)

17 Comments

playingalong

a year ago

Help the planet - OK, but how much? The public discourse would benefit from having some scale of savings/damage for all news like that. Think the lovely and simple color squares showing radiation (banana, natural, flight, atomic bomb, etc.).

I don't think we as humanity have adopted a reasonable approach towards "helping the planet". I know it could be hard, but how about listing top N polluters and addressing these? Or top N factors where the biggest possible gain is and addressing these?

Instead I am preached on plastic straws and laundry detergent.

valianteffort

a year ago

Every day we see some new article about how much of a complete piece of shit westerners are and if they just sacrifice this one luxury we will save the sea turtles.

I don't want to hear a thing until the largest polluters are reprimanded by world government first (india, SEA, africa). I have never thrown a piece of trash onto the ground let alone into a body of water to end up in a turtles stomach.

hulitu

a year ago

> I don't want to hear a thing until the largest polluters are reprimanded by world government first (india, SEA, africa). I have never thrown a piece of trash onto the ground let alone into a body of water to end up in a turtles stomach.

You do realize that a lot of western "recyclable" trash ends up in landfils on those countries because "it is cheaper" ? /s

valianteffort

a year ago

We have ample land for landfills in the US, it is not cost effective to ship it to the third world.

The ganges is filled with bodies and trash unrelated to anything we are doing here in the US.

Tarsul

a year ago

yeah you're on to something. What I would want as first and reasonable step is to talk about absolute numbers of CO2 per person(/state/company/whatever). Only then talking about reducing (e.g. in percentages) does make sense. Instead we have all the campaigns about this or that that don't really adress the general issue that it's all about _absolute_ counts of e.g. CO2 (or in this case microplastic).

But I want to give the article some slack: They basically said that in the UK the number of wash loads increased by nearly 10% without any positive effect (my interpretation); thus we may reduce our amount of wash loads by at least as much again. Also helps with the bills.

dtagames

a year ago

Even if people gave up laundry and bathing entirely, we wouldn't put a dent in overall water consumption compared to industrial uses like chip production or fracking.

It's always popular to blame the end user when corporations have terribly wasteful production processes and no accountability.

ElCapitanMarkla

a year ago

Is water use during chip production on the same magnitude as fracking? Genuinely curious as I didn’t even know it was at a level that was considered wasteful

knowitnone

a year ago

it's always popular to blame the corporations when the end users fund these corporations

naming_the_user

a year ago

Okay, but I want to have clean clothes. I like to have clean bedsheets. I shower not because I "need" to, but because I prefer to smell and feel comfortable.

People aren't ants to be corralled.

SapporoChris

a year ago

It depends on physical activity. For people working sedentary jobs, washing clothes after one day is probably not needed. For myself, I find I can wear clothes two days without issue. In the same vein, I like to shower every two days. Of course if I smell myself in the evening I will take a shower regardless of the when I last showered.

Tarsul

a year ago

The fascinating thing about showering is that there are quite a lot of ways to reduce your consumption of heating or water. E.g.:

- shower less often (e.g. to have one day every 10 days without showering means saving 10%!)

- shower with cold(er) water

- shower a minute or two shorter (also please stop showering in the middle for the soap)

- use a different sprinkler head that uses less water or don't crank up the tap as much

well, at least I find it fascinating...

knowitnone

a year ago

seriously, how do you smell yourself? People who have BO don't even know they have it until somebody tells them.

SapporoChris

a year ago

Odor fatigue (aka olfactory fatigue) is the primary reason people don't smell themselves. Generally most people, if they take the time to take a deep sniff of their arm pits, they'll know. Another method is to smell your clothes after you remove them. Asking a partner or trusted friend is also a simple method. Palate cleansing is another method.

DiscourseFan

a year ago

[flagged]

zolbrek

a year ago

Sounds super legit. Were you also a member of the team behind the online breast examinations during lockdown?

DiscourseFan

a year ago

How did you know?

Feminism is an endless struggle.