Save money, energy, and the planet with our eco-friendly tips for wash day

When is the best cheapest & most energy efficient time to do laundry?

Check which hours of the day are the cheapest, with your energy provider – many offer lower rates at night.

Running the machine through the night may reduce the energy bill but it won’t reduce the amount of energy used.

From a sustainability perspective, the best time to wash is in the morning of a sunny day – quite a task in the UK, but if you can get your washing outside on the line to dry, you will save money and energy. The average tumble dryer will create around 1.8kg CO2.

When you do use a dryer, try to fill it to capacity. One load will use less energy than lots of smaller ones.

Cold Water Washing
Around 90% of the energy used by your washing machine goes toward heating the water. If every household switched to cold water washing, it would eliminate about 725kg of CO2 every year.

Your clothes will also stay in a good condition for longer, with less shrinking, fading and colour bleeding.

Shorter Washes
If your washing machine has a quick wash setting, give it a try. They tend to be just as effective but use less energy and water.

Line dry when the weather allows
Tumble dryers are very energy intensive. Line drying means your wash will produce a quarter of the CO2e compared to the same amount of clothes dried in the tumble dryer.

Eco-Friendly Detergent
Many of our laundry detergents do not biodegrade fully and therefore pollute our waterways. There’s a huge number of eco-friendly options available on the market now.

Consider a microfibre filter
These clever filters capture the tiny plastic particles that synthetic clothes shed as they squeeze and turn in the washing machine. Wastewater treatment plants don’t capture them, so they eventually end up in our oceans and soils, causing great harm to the environment and our own health.

Opt for wool dryer balls
The average dryer sheet is single-use, non-biodegradable and loaded with toxic chemicals. Wool dryer balls are a much nicer option; they reduce static electricity and wrinkles, make clothes softer and help them dry faster.

Consider a new washing machine
Newer washing machines do tend to be more energy efficient and use less water. We’ve listed our top 5 eco-friendly washing machines here, but remember to responsibly recycle your old machine if you decide to upgrade.