Leaving Critics Out to Dry

Actor Matt Rhys just might say it best: "Hang out your clothes to dry — not the planet."  

The "Brothers and Sisters" star is just one a handful of eco-minded folks ditching the clothes dryer for an airy, sunny alternative — line drying.

It's kind of a no-brainer, really: Electric dryers eat up a ton of energy. After your refrigerator, the electric dryer is the biggest household user of electricity. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers reports that as of 2005, there were 88 million dryers in the United States. Each of these machines eats up approximately 1,079 kilowatt hours of energy per household, giving off a whopping 2,224 pounds of carbon dioxide. Yikes.

The positive aspects of line drying go way beyond energy conservation. Clothes last longer when line dried. Needing whiter whites? Sunlight is natural bleach for your clothes. Oh, and here's a fun fact of the day: Line drying kills germs. Those oh-so-harmful-to-the-skin ultraviolet rays have antiseptic properties and blast bacteria. (Who knew?)

But the practice has its critics, especially homeowner associations, most of which prohibit the lines.

In an interview with Legal Affairs, Richard S. Monson, the president of the California Association of Homeowners Associations, says a clothesline in a neighborhood can slash property values by 15 percent. "Modern homeowners don't like people's underwear in public," Monson has said. "It's just unsightly."

But Right 2 Dry supporters want their lines. And they want 'em now.

British documentary filmmaker Steven Lake stumbled upon the movement while smack in the middle of a most mundane task: doing his laundry.

"I was staring at my laundry bag, which has the word laundry written on it. So I decided to Google the word 'Laundry' for no reason. I ended up on Wikipedia where I found information on the right to dry, and it just grew from there."

Lake says people fighting for the right to hang washing on a line in the United States amazed him. “It is such a mundane thing that it’s just absolutely fascinating,” he says.

The result of his ongoing fascination is "Drying for Freedom," a film about line drying currently in pre-production. Lake says he can't understand banning or restricting the practice.

"I think that in a country that prides itself on its freedom, and that every man is equal it seems very obscure to me that such restrictions exist in the United States of America," Lake says. "Wasting energy for the sake of property values and prudishness is does not seem a valid reason to me."

Nor to us.

For more tips on the ins-and-outs of line drying, check out Linedryit. and Project Laundry List. For more on Steven Lake’s doc, check out Drying For Freedom.