The Laundry Situation.

Like the last apartment, my new place has no washer or dryer. I used to just head down to the 24 hour laundromat at 3 AM when no one would bother me, shell out $20 and get 8 loads of laundry done in the amount of time it took to listen to a radio show or write out my budget.

Yeah, that's not my idea of fun, either.

The laundromat has always disgusted me. Aside from the fact that there are sometimes creepy people lurking about and there are the jerks who drip liquid detergent and/or massive amounts of water all over the floor the very thought of the amount of electricity and water used in those giant machines is almost overwhelming. But everyone has to do what they have to do, right?

Well, there's no nearby 24 hour laundromat where I live.
Additionally, living in the woods is somehow motivating me to live more environmentally friendly. I have always been concerned with the environment (even as a child) so it feels really nice to be in a position to do the little things that I couldn't really do before.

Instead of paying to clean my clothes, I've been hand washing them. Right now, I'm trying to find a good alternative to traditional detergents and other cleaning chemicals. Since I'm on a well system I think it's even more relevant to make sure bad chemicals aren't going into the ground. Everything seems to be going fine, so far. I bought a clothesline and there are plenty of trees around that allow for maximum sunlight.

I'm saving only around $20-$30 by washing them myself but I'm also saving electricity and excessive amounts of water from being wasted.

I found a pretty useful site with ingredients for enviro-friendly cleaning supplies and I did some quick reading on the Wonder Wash, a portable washing machine that is faster and uses less energy than the typical machine (it also has a dryer counterpart!).

Anyway, I'll be posting more about this as I run across good ideas and/or products.
If anyone's got suggestions I'd love to hear them! My only concern with hand washing is that certain stains are proving difficult to get out!