Drying For Freedom – Are you breaking the Law?
Are you breaking the law with your clothes line?
When clothes dryers account for at least 6% of the electricity used by U.S. households, is it any wonder that line-drying is coming back? In places where the practice is banned as an unsightly nuisance to neighbors, right-to-dry activists and blogging eco-moms are forming an alliance. Their cause: to reduce energy consumption and to call upon sunlight rather than bleach to get those whites even whiter.
The movement also includes homeowners pinched by rising electric bills as well as some celebrity converts. Yes, there’s even a blog dedicated to tracking who’s who in L.A. line-drying. (For the curious, it’s blog.linedryit.com/eco_facts/, which lists the likes of “The O.C.” actress Rachel Bilson and singer Olivia Newton-John.)
It’s not just the cookie cutter gated communities that often prohibit line-drying. Homeowner associations at retirement communities, mobile home parks and condos often prohibit the practice. Elleven, Los Angeles’ first condo building to receive the U.S. Green Building Council’s gold LEED rating for environmentally conscious design, has sustainable bamboo flooring — but line-drying? That’s still strictly forbidden!
In some beach communities they even go so far as to not allow hanging towels to dry out side.
These kinds of rules drove British film producer Steven Lake to make “Drying for Freedom,” a documentary on line-drying in the U.S. that he said is in pre-production.
DRYING FOR FREEDOM is a film about our right to protect the planet. Watch the video trailer!
There is a worldwide focus and drive to cut carbon emissions and ensure that human activity does not damage our planet. Paradoxically there are an increasing number of communities that actively prevent people from living environmentally conscious lives. How would you respond if you were banned from being environmentally friendly?
DRYING FOR FREEDOM explores this new eco battlefield where communities and individuals are banned from drying their clothes naturally outdoors – a simple single act which cuts carbon emissions and reduces energy bills. Challenging the rules could lead to prosecution; in one instance it has even lead to murder! How did drying clothes become a life threatening, environmental and social catastrophe?
Steven’s journey shows how corporate America sold the dream of electric bliss to post-World War America, creating electric consumption which disregards the carbon impact on the planet. The film argues that if this globalisation continues and big business promote the use of electric dryers, and other inefficient energy consuming appliances, global energy demands will continue to rise and the need for carbon emitting coal, oil and gas fuelled power stations will increase. Currently we cannot generate sufficient green electricity to meet existing demand which is already increasing.
DRYING FOR FREEDOM is a global exploration of the environment, freedom, communities and corporate exploitation, revealing the extent of the challenge we now face. The film includes contributions from Verona, Mississippi, where investigations are underway in a unique clothesline murder case, to Concord, New Hampshire and the home of Alexander Lee the leader of the world’s leading clothesline pressure group. It reveals of our electric heritage and events leading up to millions of clothesline bans within US communities where the restrictions of freedom has become an un-environmental way of life.
It makes you think, right?
see also 10 reasons to line dry your clothes
Go Green America TV Host – Jeff Davis
“Think Green, Live Green and Go Green America!”
Category: Go Green America TV Segments, Go Green News
About the Author (Author Profile)
Creator/Host of Go Green America TV
Jeff (Jf) Davis aka The Go Green Guy is from Maine
Moved to LA to follow his passion as an actor
these days he is still acting, lives in LA with his wife and two boys
an writes about Green Living for his website Go Green America TV
that will soon be a TV show!!
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