Consumers urged to wash in cold water
Conservation and environmental activist, Michelle Garforth-Venter, has recently launched the Go Cold campaign in response to a study that has revealed that washing with hot water emits 24 times more greenhouse gasses than cold washing. Garforth-Venter aims to mobilise South Africans to use cold water when doing their laundry.
Energy efficiency research has revealed that the average household does almost 400 loads of laundry every year, consuming about 400 kW of energy. "Over its lifespan of around 11 years, a washing machine uses enough water to fill three swimming pools. Now imagine how much electricity is required to heat that amount of water," she says.
Energy goes towards heating
Approximately 90% of the energy required to wash a load of laundry goes towards heating the water. The irony is that it is not necessary to use hot water wash cycles, more so because one hot load costs as much as ten cold water washed loads. "The threat is now - our planet's resources are already under extreme pressure and without the immediate intervention of every individual, we simply will not be able to maintain our quality of life. All it takes is for each person to make changes in their daily practices to conserve electricity," she says.
Recent research shows that 70% of South African households wash in hot water. This is largely because although most consumers believe they are using unheated or cold water wash cycles. Only 30% of front load machine users make a conscious decision to wash at cold temperature. Over a seven-year period, switching to a cold water wash can reduce each household's greenhouse gas impact by 90%, equivalent to removing 64% of new cars put onto the road in 2011.
