National Outdoor Leadership School - Index

National Outdoor Leadership School - Summer2008 - Index

SUMMER 2008
Saving Energy With Your Laundry
Project Laundry List
founder and NOLS grad
Alexander Lee took his
cause to the halls of
power and asked presidential
candidates and
their spouses to hang
their clothes to dry.
to dry their laundry outside and to challenge one
million Americans to pledge to use clotheslines.
According to Alex, more than 150,000 communities
and homeowners’ associations in the United States
have restrictions or bans on clotheslines. These restrictions
are based on aesthetics and the idea that property
values will be negatively impacted by laundry drying
outside. “The problem is that in a lot of neighborhoods,
community associations see hanging laundry
as a flag of poverty, and they have banned it in public,”
Alex said. In (most) other parts of the world,
however, hanging laundry is the norm. For example,
according to Alex, only 4 percent of Italians own
clothes dryers, compared to 81 percent of people here
in the United States. “Since 1945, we have subscribed
to a GE-perpetrated myth that these [appliances]
would free us from the drudgery of housework.
In fact…instead of providing leisure time, they’ve led
to a more frenetic pace.” He promotes hanging laundry
on a clothesline as a way to not only reduce en-
ergy consumption (and bills) but as a way to reconnect
with nature and practice living minimally, if
only in a small way.
This idea of minimalism and connecting directly
with the natural world, which Alex says is “thematic
to my life work,” is something that he felt very
strongly on his NOLS course. Although he had a
good deal of outdoor experience before going on his
Brooks Range Wilderness River course in 1992, he
had never experienced anything quite like the beauty
of the range and the experience of eating muktuk
(whale meat). “I feel really privileged to have gone
to a place that not many people will see,” he said
about his time spent in Alaska with NOLS.
His interest in environmental science began back
in eighth grade when he created “the greenhouse
effect in a Coke bottle” for a science class. Since then,
Alex has graduated from Middlebury College, with a
degree in Environmental Studies, and Vermont Law
School, winning public service awards at each institution.
But it was time spent traveling in Ontario,
Northern Quebec, and Alaska that sparked his passion
for conservation. “I want to preserve Alaska because
I’ve seen it,” he says. Through Project Laundry List
he continues to advocate for the protection of rivers
in northern Quebec from hydroelectric dams.
Ever since a mention in the style section of the
New York Times in April 2007, press for Project
7
Laundry List has been showing up everywhere. The
nonprofit was featured in the 2007 Thanksgiving issue
of TIME magazine, and Alex was the featured activist
in Sierra Magazine’s September/October 2007 issue.
The Newsroom section of www.laundrylist.org has
grown exponentially in the last year as publications
from The Christian Science Monitor to The Wall
Street Journal have picked up the story of the “Right
to Dry” advocacy group.
When asked what NOLS grads can do, Alex
provided a few simple ideas:
• Wash your clothes in cold water, or at least turn
down the temperature on your hot water heater.
• Buy green detergents.
• Use a laundromat—they’re often more environmentally-friendly
than home washers because
laundromat owners have a financial interest in
seeking out the most efficient appliances.
• Outside of the realm of laundry, Alex encourages
everyone to actively advocate for conservation.
“People who enjoy the outdoors need to be
loud voices.”
For more information, or to see how you can help, visit
their website: www.laundrylist.org.
© Marian Dioguardi • www.mariandioguardi.com