Laundry Care Regimes: Do the Practices of Keeping Clothes Clean Have Different Environmental Impacts Based on the Fibre Content?

Abstract

Clothing maintenance is necessary for keeping clothing and textiles functional and socially acceptable, but it has environmental consequences due to the use of energy, water and chemicals. This article discusses whether clothes made of different materials are cleaned in different ways and have different environmental impacts. It fills a knowledge gap needed in environmental assessments that evaluate the impacts based on the function of a garment by giving detailed information on the use phase. The article is based on a quantitative wardrobe survey and qualitative laundry diary data from China, Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA. The largest potential for environmental improvement exists in reducing laundering frequency and in the selection of washing and drying processes, and through a transition to fibres that are washed less frequently, such as wool. Adopting best practice garment care would give larger benefits in countries like the US where the consumption values were the highest, mainly due to extensive use of clothes dryers and less efficient washing machines combined with frequent cleaning. These variations should be considered in environmental assessments of clothing and when forming sustainability policies. The results indicate the benefits of focusing future environmental work on consumer habits and culture and not only technologies.

Reducing environmental impacts from garments through best practice garment use and care, using the example of a Merino wool sweater

“…This study was one of the first of its kind to compare current consumer garment behaviour with best practices based on garment potential and recommended care practices. Wool garments have particular attributes that favour reduced environmental impacts in the garment use phase, associated with odour resistance leading to less frequent need for washing, low washing temperature requirements and suitability for air drying practices (Laitala and Klepp 2016;Laitala et al 2020). While these favourable practices are typically used for wool garments at higher rates than other fibre types, there are opportunities to further reduce environmental impacts, as shown in this analysis.…”

“…A survey of Dutch households (Uitdenbogerd et al 1998) showed that those who commonly aired their garments conducted 22.5% fewer washes than the average household. More recent studies on laundering practices found that wool garments were worn more days between cleaning cycles than garments made of other fibres (Laitala et al 2018(Laitala et al , 2020, indicating that airing of wool garments is practised by many consumers. However, large variations exist in how many times a wool garment is worn before it is washed; responses varied from 1 to more than 30 wears, and in some cases, garments had not been washed since purchase (Wiedemann et al 2020).…”

“…Intensive drying options such as the use of clothes' dryers are rarely used for wool garments. However, with other fibre types and other geographic regions such as the USA where use of energy intensive clothes dryers is higher (Laitala et al 2020), drying practices may be more significant. Overall, these results show that a conservative washing frequency, and to a lesser extent, efficient washing loads and limited use of a tumble dryer, are effective ways for consumers to reduce the use phase impacts of wool garments.…”

Life Cycle Based Comparison of Textile Ecolabels

“…Of course, it is questionable whether and how producers and consumers can influence this life cycle phase, especially explicitly. Even though some studies demonstrate that fibre and garment type can influence consumer behaviour, they also show that laundry practices are highly dependent on cultural and country specific effects (habit of hand washing, quality of washing machines, use of tumble dryers) [61,62]. They are further linked to garment use, social auditing, cultural norms, garment aesthetics, life stage, and household arrangements [63].…”

Sharing is caring - the importance of capital goods when assessing environmental impacts from private and shared laundry systems in Sweden

“…For example, shared laundries (e.g., communal laundry rooms within a multi-family building, or a commercial coinoperated facility) are often used in the Philippines (Retamal and Schandl 2018), Japan and Thailand (Moon 2020) and Finland (Miilunpalo and Raisanen 2019). A recent study by Laitala et al (2020) also found that the use of shared washing machines varied between 6 and 13% among consumers in China, Germany, Japan, UK, and the USA. For Sweden, shared laundries were introduced during the 1920s and have been the norm throughout the nation since the 1950s (Lund 2009).…”