To wash things after one wear?

[JustGiveMeGin]

I know it is terrible for the environment however even though I shower every morning and my children shower daily I feel our clothes are ready for the wash at the end of the day!
We have a dog so I am usually covered in dog hairs/mud from walking her. I also have loose covers on the couch which get taken off and washed twice weekly because of said dog.
I am doing at least 2-3 loads of washing and drying a day. AIBU?

I’m WFH and wear sports leggings and a hoody days. TMI but there is definitely a bit of whiff from the crotch of my leggings at the end of the day.

That sounds like a personal hygiene problem. You shouldn't have any kind of whiff.

Even when I lived alone, I must have been doing around 5 loads of laundry a week. I can't imagine surviving with 2 or 3 a week with a FAMILY

Just my bedding fill one load. Do people have enormous washing machines?

If a jumper looks clean and doesn't smell of sweaty armpits, I wear it again. Washing jumpers too frequently just ruins them. I wear jeans a few times. So basically if it looks or smells dirty I wash it.

I have to wash pretty much everything after one wear, too. We also have a hairy dog who likes to sit on laps, jumps up at us with muddy paws etc. It's different if you don't have pets. And we usually do a bit of weeding or pottering in the garden each day, always have a project of some sort on the go. Also, I visit my mum regularly and she smokes (not when I'm there but you take smells away from a smokers house, which I can't bear) so everything goes in the wash when I get home. Plus all the bedding once a week and all the towels twice a week, tea towels, cloths etc daily - average two loads a day. Looking forward to the rugby kit coming home twice a week, too! 🙀

Sounds like a massive waste of time, money and environmental resources in my opinion.

OP clearly you are washing way too much. Look at your issue from the outside, you are a parent and need to protect the planet for DC's future. Washing clean clothes is ridiculous.

It is only with the advent of washing machines and tumble driers in combination with the massive drop in clothing prices that we have developed this concept of constantly washing our clothes. It is a modern phenomenon and one of the many behaviours we need to shift away from.

Yes before the advent of cheap to the point of disposable clothing good quality clothes were seen as an investment and looked after accordingly.

I don't wear clothes more than once but aside from underwear or if something is stained, I use the quick cool wash cycle on my machine. There is absolutely no way that my DS could wear an item of clothing more than once because he's filthy by the end of the day. He has clean uniform each day too (in normal times).

@YesItsAPeacock

Seems like a massive waste of time, money and environmental resources.

You'll get a good long thread of people telling you the same thing and you'll ignore them all, I dare say.

This.

Have some dogwalking trousers. Having a dog doesn't mean you need to wash all your clothes every day, or a huge chunk of people would do that. Assess what needs washing and what doesn't - this is bad for the environment.

@therealteamdebbie

Even when I lived alone, I must have been doing around 5 loads of laundry a week. I can't imagine surviving with 2 or 3 a week with a FAMILY

Just my bedding fill one load. Do people have enormous washing machines?

@therealteamdebbie what on earth were you washing every week to fill 5 loads?! Even if you are doing your bedding plus a lights and darks load that's only 3.

@therealteamdebbie what on earth were you washing every week to fill 5 loads?! Even if you are doing your bedding plus a lights and darks load that's only 3.

Very roughly

Bedding: one
Towels: one
Black: one
White: one
colour: one

Work clothes/ sports clothes/ casual/ nightwear... more than enough to fill 5 loads a week.

I think our Earth is impatient for humans to die out.

That guy on the Matrix, humans truly are a cancer on this planet, the destruction we are all making in these little ways is immense.

*that guy in the Matrix was right

I think a lot of people also don't realise that modern washing detergents use biological enzymes that are fantastically effective at breaking down stains but are deactivated by high temperatures.

[quote therealteamdebbie]**@therealteamdebbie what on earth were you washing every week to fill 5 loads?! Even if you are doing your bedding plus a lights and darks load that's only 3.

Very roughly

Bedding: one
Towels: one
Black: one
White: one
colour: one

Work clothes/ sports clothes/ casual/ nightwear... more than enough to fill 5 loads a week.[/quote]
But surely if you're working, then going to the gym (or whatever), then showering and changing for the last few hours of the day you can get a few days' wear out of your casual clothes?

And you can change your towels every week without having to wash them immediately - you can easily fit a couple of bath towels, three or four hand towels and some tea towels in a standard washing machine, or put a towel in with one of the other washes.

@Crackerofdoom

I just wanted to say to those who talk about regular washing for hygiene reasons that anything under 60 degrees is not going to kill germs or bacteria and most washing machines don't keep the water at 60 degrees on a 60 cycle long enough to have a disinfecting effect. We learned this when researching for our washable nappies. In the end we washed them at 30 degrees as with the model of washing machine we had, there was little difference between 30 and 60.

OP, waterproof trousers or gators could help keep the mud off your clothes when dog walking.

Whenever my kids get undressed, underwear goes straight in the wash and then I help them look at their clothes and smell them to see if they are ok for another wear. We don't own a lot of clothes theough choice and we focus on taking care of what we have.

As a society we need to accept that some of the things we have prioritised and vilified in the past are not compatible with the environmental reality we are living in.

It is only with the advent of washing machines and tumble driers in combination with the massive drop in clothing prices that we have developed this concept of constantly washing our clothes. It is a modern phenomenon and one of the many behaviours we need to shift away from.

Two pushes of the options button on my £300 Hoover gives me the option to maintain the temperature throughout the wash. Not vital for everything, but definitely for bedding and towels.

I don't fancy going back for a repeat performance of being identified as the grubby one, complete with permanent stuffy nose, itches, rashes and unspecified discolouration/patches on my clothes as they weren't washed quickly because 'they aren't dirty yet'.

Moreover, when you have to daub yourself in various petrochemicals and medications on a daily basis, not washing clothes after one use runs the risk of turning yourself into a human torch (and leaving the residue to seep into your clothes both feels foul and enables smells to stick).

It's depressing that people will just do what they want and think they're entitled to, regardless of the effect on the environment. The most ironic is that those who have four, five, six children, then of course need a huge car, a larger house, have the washing machine on constantly, etc. are the very people screwing up the planet for the next generation - i.e. their own kids.