4 reasons more people are hanging laundry outside again

It's easier (and more hygienic) than you think!

When you think about line-drying laundry, you may harken back to Ma and Pa Ingalls (well, really just Ma, let's be real) clipping beautiful white linens to breezily dry in the prairie sunshine. But the benefits of line-drying laundry didn't die with the settlers: They can still be ours!

When Hurricane Helene decimated my city, and we were without water and power for weeks, I got a front row seat to the benefits of drying laundry outside in the sunshine–I had no other choice, sure, but it gave me great insight into how lovely and economical this process can be.

The Sun Is A Natural Disinfectant

Though this might sound like a debunked piece of old-fashioned knowledge passed down through the generations, it is, in fact, scientifically supported! But let's back up: Why does clean laundry need disinfecting in the first place?

If one piece of laundry in a load is covered in a nasty bacteria or virus (especially as we exit our collective sick season known as "winter"), the germs can migrate to the entire load. In a "heavy duty," or extra-hot, washing, they can sometimes be knocked out, but often a good hot wash isn't enough.

It's actually the drying process that removes most microbes, because the heat from the dryer kills any remaining particulate that might be less-than-savory. A long, hot tumble in the dryer should do the trick. The other option, though, is sunlight.

Sunlight is a natural disinfectant because of its ultraviolet rays. Hanging wet laundry to dry in the hot sun allows the UV rays to work their disinfecting magic, killing any remaining bacteria or microbes that made it through the wash cycle. It's incredibly effective at truly cleaning those clothes or linens.

It's Also A Natural Brightener For White Items

Do you have some white towels that have seen better days? Or some hand towels that just need a good douse in whatever's strongest?

Line-drying your items is the ticket. Of course, we've all accidentally left things in the sun, whether that's framed photographs that have been on a particularly sun-soaked wall that fade over time or a garden hose that started out as a rich, vibrant green and now looks closer to a light jade. We know the power of the sun's bleaching capabilities. Why not wheel those on your problematic laundry?

Sunlight Can Help Kill Musty Odors

Sometimes, no matter how many times you've run a set of older towels through a "heavy duty" wash cycle and tossed them to freshen in a long, hot drying sequence, you still remove them to discover that there's a lingering odor. Line-drying may be your last ditch effort to revive these older, more tired pieces of your hardworking linen closet.

Because UV rays kill bacteria and microbes, hanging your linens outside to dry helps to eradicate the smells that come with bacteria. Occasionally, when larger or more dense pieces like towels or sheets are dried, they don't dry completely. This leftover dampness almost always leads to undesirable smells, and that's another problem line-drying can fix: Evenly hanging a piece over a line guarantees that it'll dry completely with no yucky odors left over.

It's Better For The Planet

If you're like me, you often get distracted with other household chores while trying to shoot the gap that the one-hour drying cycle leaves you to fill. Sometimes, that means I need to run the dryer a second, shorter cycle to fluff up the clothing and keep it from wrinkling. Other times, if I have a load of dense towels, my dryer requires a second pass at the bundle to get it completely dried.

But all that drying is pricey.

Dryers are one of the most energy-intensive appliances in our houses. Estimating that you complete around three loads of laundry per week, you're likely paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $66 in energy fees per week just to use the appliance at all. And that's not even counting the extra round of drying most of us require for one of the aforementioned reasons. It's an expensive luxury, and line-drying your clothing keeps those costs all the way down. Especially in the warm months when it's just as easy to clip your clothing to a line and let the natural world work its magic, the question feels too simple to avoid: Why not give it a shot?

Read the original article on Southern Living