Let Your Undies Free!

Top news sources ranging from Time magazine to the ABC News have been featuring articles about clotheslines. (They’re just following my news lead … Conservation.)

There are few things that seem to me to be as clearly positive as clotheslines. Did you know that up to 6% of the electricity generated in the U.S. is used just for drying clothes? More to the point for many of us today, the State of California estimates that on average, a dryer costs about $130 a year to operate. And my wife and I just love the way clothes smell when they have been in the open air here in Color Country. Besides, down here, they dry in significantly less time than it used to take in the dryer.

Wikipedia lists these advantages of drying your clothes in the great outdoors:

• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions
• Makes clothes smell “clothesline fresh” without using chemicals
• Clothing manufacturers say clothesline drying results in much less fabric wear and tear
• Provides a source of exercise
• Provides frequent, brief exposure of the skin to the sun (Vitamin D)
• Clothes can dry more quickly on hot, dry days
• Eliminates heating up the house with a mechanical clothes dryer
• Reduces airbourne lint
• Eliminates the increased ambient noise from a mechanical clothes dryer
• No risk of fire as from a mechanical clothes dryer
• No risk of toxic fumes from gas-powered mechanical clothes dryer
• No static cling
• Clothes don’t shrink

But there are people who are unmoved by arguments and in some places, it’s against the rules. Homeowners associations, in particular, sometimes pass rules outlawing clotheslines. The people who don’t like them say they look tacky and reduce property values.

I’m unmoved by that argument.

I say, “Let your undies fly free!” And some state governments agree with me. Some states make it illegal for clotheslines to be banned. But the details get kind of muddy. I’ve seen articles that claim everything from one to seven states now have laws protecting clotheslines. But I only care about one … this one.

So I checked it out. Utah … sorta … protects me.

Utah Code, § 10-9a-610, permits municipalities to deny approval or renewal of any map, plan, dedications, or other grounds, if binding agreements prohibit, or have the effect of prohibiting, solar collectors, clotheslines, or other renewable energy devices, on those grounds. The statute therefore allows municipalities to choose whether to create a right to dry.

I will be petitioning my local municipality to pass that ordinance and protect my Right to Dry!