Clean Laundry: Your Guide to Sustainable Clothes Care

What is clean laundry and why is it important?

First, let’s touch on the different aspects of clean laundry. A sustainable laundry routine isn’t solely about creating less waste in your laundry room bin—it’s also about the chemicals, fibers, water, and energy usage involved.

Nontoxic formulas

Conventional laundry detergents and dryer sheets might smell fresh, but they can contain hundreds of toxins, including known carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, and other harmful chemicals and irritants.

Common offenders include 1,4-dioxane and surfactants like petroleum distillate, naphtha, and phenol, which can lead to serious health problems. Nonylphenol Ethoxylates (NPEs), which are banned in Europe but common in American laundry detergents, can be particularly harmful to children.

These substances can cling to your clothes and bedding or spread through your dryer vents into your home. They also make their way into our waters, causing harm to aquatic ecosystems, so it’s best to avoid.

Common offenders include 1,4-dioxane and surfactants like petroleum distillate, naphtha, and phenol, which can lead to serious health problems

Microfiber solutions

Fabrics like polyesters, acrylics, and nylons, contain tiny synthetic threads that, when agitated during the wash cycle, can become dislodged and leech into our waterways. Not only are they ingested by wildlife, but they can also end up in what we ourselves consume.

Microfibers are also released into the air via our dryer vents. In fact, our dryers can actually release more microfibers into the environment than our washers. Installing a microfiber filter to your washing machine’s drain line can help limit the amount of microfibers that come out of your cycle (up to 87% of fleece fibers in one study).

Water and energy conservation

Laundry machines also use a great deal of water and energy. The average home washer uses about 41 gallons of water per load. The energy that it takes to heat the water and run the dryer is also significant. In fact, the dryer takes up roughly 6% of the energy use of the average home.

Plastic-free products

Additionally, our laundry products account for a lot of waste over time. Single-use plastic jugs of laundry detergent are difficult to clean and recycle. Dryer sheets also end up as litter, as they’re conventionally made of polyester that doesn’t break down. They’re also coated in waxy residues that clog dryer parts and screens, increasing drying times, damaging clothing, and potentially creating fire hazards.

For these reasons, we recommend using plastic-free laundry liquids, laundry powders, or laundry detergent sheets, finishing with snuggly wool dryer balls.

Sustainable laundry tips and tricks

Now that we’ve covered the basics of why clean laundry is better for the health of our families and the environment, let’s talk best practices for a sustainable laundry system.

Wash less

Washing our clothing less often is one of the main ways we can reduce microfiber pollution, save resources, and help our clothes last longer. Whenever possible, wait until your laundry machine is full to run it. Larger loads will also create less friction to dislodge microfibers.

To wash less, we recommend having a drawer or basket for “worn-but-not-dirty” clothes to rewear throughout the week. If it passes the sniff test, consider rewearing it. Not only is this more sustainable, but rewearing pieces throughout the week will also reduce the amount of time it takes you to get dressed.

Many items of clothing, such as chunky knits and jackets, don’t need to be cleaned often at all, especially if you’re wearing something under them.

Denim is designed to last you a long time, and too much wash wear will often show up visibly, resulting in shrinkage or bacon-ing at the zip line.

Ballerina trick: you can also use a homemade fabric spray made from vodka, distilled water, and lavender or other essential oils, to treat the pits of your clothing in between washes, like they do for ballet costumes in between shows. This can help keep your pieces smelling fresher longer.

Dry less

It’s also a good rule of thumb to air dry your clothes whenever possible—especially when it comes to items that may shrink in the wash. This helps extend the life of your clothes so you don’t have to consume more. It also reduces the use of energy and the spread of microfibers into the environment.

Some care instructions will recommend hanging dry or drying flat. We recommend a clothes drying rack or clothesline for drying many garments at once.

Washing our clothing less often is one of the main ways we can reduce microfiber pollution

Wash on cold

When you wash, it’s a good idea to use the cold setting whenever possible, unless you have clothes that are really dirty. Washing using cold water is generally better for long-term clothes care and energy usage—win-win.

Don’t throw things away

We always recommend wearing and mending your clothes to make them last you as long as possible, but when you really aren’t going to use them or when they’ve reached their end-of-life, here are some things to consider:

→ Create a bag for un-matched socks: chances are, the lost sock will turn up again at some point.

→ Try a clothing swap with friends to switch out gently-worn clothes you aren’t going to wear.

→ Cycle older socks, underwear, and layers into your camping bag or emergency go bag.

→ Repurpose old clothes as rags for cleaning, heatless hair curlers, and DIY projects.

→ Use a Take Back Bag for all textiles, including pillowcases, underwear, shoes, and handbags in any condition.

Save your lint too

We recommend keeping your dryer lint in a small container as a fire starter for backyard fires and camping. It can also be repurposed as stuffing or insulation in DIY projects. The clothes fibers that you collect from sweaters using our sustainable Lint Remover can also be used as a perfect color match to patch up holes.

If the fibers all come from 100% natural fibers without harmful wash/dry chemicals, such as after you wash linen bedding, you can also compost dryer lint in your brown layer.

Buy better

Finally, be conscious about what you buy: read the care instructions before purchasing an item of clothing, not just after. This will help you plan what you’d need to do to take care of the garment. If you don’t have time for handwashing a piece that requires it, don’t buy it!

Also prioritize natural fibers like wool and linen that won’t shed synthetic fibers into the ecosystem. Purchase things you know will last you a long time—that would be worth it to you to wear often and mend when needed.

A sustainable laundry routine

Now that you’ve incorporated these clean laundry tips and tricks, here’s a simple sustainable laundry day routine to get you started.

1. Pre-treat stains if needed:

On or before wash day, pre-treat any serious stains using a stain spray or stick. A simple paste made of baking soda and lemon juice will help treat many stains on white garments (such as underarm deo stains) when left in the sun. Some pieces, like some knit sweaters, are better off spot-treated instead of washed.

2. Handwash delicates:

You might want to have a separate place to keep items that need to be handwashed, and handwash them once you have 3 or so “handwash only” pieces that are dirty.

→ First, add a tablespoon or so of your laundry liquid of choice to a sink full of water and add the items one at a time, going from lighter to darker.

→ Agitate using a wash board or by hand, then squeeze out as much as possible (but never wring silk or sweaters).

→ Do a rinse in clean water, squeeze out again, then roll each piece up in a towel to absorb water before air drying.

When you wash, it’s a good idea to use the cold setting whenever possible

3. Wash cycle:

Machine wash your clothes using a clean, vegan, nontoxic laundry detergent like our MUSEWASH Laundry Detergent Sheets. The pre-measured sheets come in luxury, nontoxic scents and are powered with stain- and odor-fighting enzymes. Just toss one in and go.

4. Dry cycle and air dry:

Finally, air dry your clothes using a line or a drying rack. Anything you choose not to air dry, toss in the dryer with our Kind Laundry Wool Dryer Balls. You can even add a few drops of a lavender or other essential oil to the balls for some extra freshness.

Finally, in between washes, don’t forget to store your clothes properly so that they last longer for you.

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