The Dreaded Stomach Flu and Laundry

On Saturday night Big Bro came down with the stomach flu suddenly around 11:00pm. He woke up screaming and crying, "Mommy, I have terrible spit!" aka: vomit.

Ok, I'm sorry, that's a bit graphic.

Anyhow, it was a busy night of getting up with him every couple hours to successfully empty his stomach into the toilet....(better? not really?)

Even so, there was lots of laundry to be done in the morning. Which got me thinking about laundry and energy and how much I would use to wash sheets and pajamas after an eventful night.

I know many people still swear that the only way to get laundry really clean is to use hot or warm water. But I also know that heating water (often unnecessarily) is responsible for a large portion of an individual household's greenhouse gas emissions. In short, doing your laundry in hot or warm water is unnecessary, raises your energy bill, and increases your personal contribution to climate change.

I have been using detergent designed specifically for cold water. It's not just marketing, it's science! Cold water detergents use different chemicals to get your clothes clean in cold water, thus saving your energy bill, and reducing your personal contribution to global warming.

Yet, many people are reluctant to make the switch even though it will help save money and help civilization in general. "I just can't bring myself to wash underwear in cold water!" as my friend recently told me with a slight grimace on her face.

Ok, I get it.

So far, cold water detergents are still a niche market for people like me who get worked up about energy. There is a lot of information on the web that still says you should wash clothes in hot water to get it clean. Some of them get really absurd saying that you should run an empty hot water cycle with bleach, then another empty cycle to get rid of the bleach and THEN wash your clothes. Every. Time. That is wasteful, crazy talk; a symptom of a germ-phobic nation based in paranoia. Our fear of germs has only bred super germs.

Please believe me that you can really get your laundry clean with cold water detergent. Check out this link from the Alliance to Save Energy. Then, if you're still worried about needing to disinfect your clothes use the disinfecting power of the sun when drying your clothes.