Tips for Cleaning Infant Clothing the Eco-Friendly Way
One approach to reduce your negative effects on the environment is to dress your kid in eco-friendly clothes. Better for the environment and safer for baby's delicate skin, use high-quality textiles. If you want to know how to wash your baby's clothes in a way that doesn't harm the environment, read on!
Caring for infant garments sustains natural resources
The rate at which babies develop is incredible. Investing in high-quality, ethically sourced, environmentally friendly apparel is a great place to begin. Caring for high-quality garments extends their lifespan, allowing them to be donated or handed on to new babies in the family, so reducing the amount of fast fashion that ends up in landfills.
What Effect Does Laundry Detergent Have on the Environment?
How many parents have thrown their infant's garments into the washing machine with some commercial detergent and a warm wash cycle? In all honesty, I think a lot. It's counterproductive to buy eco-friendly baby clothes if you're just going to throw them in the washing machine and dryer without thinking about the environmental impact of doing so.
Typical methods of doing laundry have many negative effects on the environment, including the following:
- Many popular brands pollute the water supply with synthetic chemical compounds, which is bad news for marine life and the ecosystems they depend on.
- Detergent washed with dirty water goes down the drain and doesn't always degrade.
- Many products come in plastic bottles that can't be reused or recycled, thus tons of trash end up in landfills every year.
- Energy-intensive and potentially water-wasting laundry machines.
How to Go Green in the Laundry Room in 6 Easy Steps
- See the Warnings
To keep a sustainable fabric looking good for as long as possible, it's a good idea to follow the washing and care instructions provided with the item. Care instructions are included on the tags to assist you determine what to wash and dry together.
- Pick Out Some Cleansing Agents
There are chemicals in many popular brands. In addition to being bad for the environment, contaminants like these can degrade natural colors used in clothing and even ruin the garments your kid wears.
Look for plant-based, biodegradable ingredients and select a non-toxic, all-natural detergent designed for use on baby clothes. Common examples of all-natural cleaners are vegetable oil soap, baking soda, vinegar, and other mild chemicals.
If at all possible, stay away from bleach. It's not as effective as other detergents at killing germs and damaging fabric, and it can irritate and harm a child's skin.
Avoid using softeners on your clothes. The best baby garments won't need any of those extra chemicals to make the fabric comfortable on a newborn's skin.
- Remove Stubborn Spots
Messy babies have a well-earned reputation. Stains can occur despite your best efforts to prevent them. Stains can be treated in a more environmentally friendly manner than by using a chemical-based cleaner.
A quick response increases the likelihood that the stain can be removed, so get to work as soon as you see the stain. Dab the stained area with ice cold water and a color safe cloth. In certain cases, an ice cube rubbed directly on a stain is all that's needed to remove it.
Although baking soda, vinegar, and lemon juice may be able to remove certain stubborn stains, you should not use them unless you are familiar with the fabric's reaction to them. If you need help cleaning, consider using a company that is mindful of the environment.
- Fill the Washer
Now that the dirty laundry is organized, you may begin the process of making clean garments. Hand-washing clothes is the most eco-friendly option because it requires significantly less water, energy, and cleaning products than machine washing. Hand washing demands a lot more involvement from busy parents than utilizing the machines in the laundry room.
Many parents find that washing baby items in the washing machine is the most convenient option, but they should be more mindful of their water and energy consumption. If you want to do your part for the environment, it's best to wash as many diapers as possible in one load.
- Pick a Cleaning Mode
The warm setting may be the default on some machines. Alternately, if you always press "start," try "cold" instead. This new method not only saves more energy, but it also reduces wear and tear on garments, protects dyes, and eliminates static cling as a bonus.
Once the appropriate temperature has been reached, switch to the gentle cycle. Because the clothing is less soggy after this cycle, drying time is reduced. The mild cycle is not only better for the environment, but it also reduces wear and tear on baby garments.
- Use the Dryer Less Often to Save Power
Hanging baby clothes on a line or drying rack is the most energy-efficient way to dry them. This not only reduces energy consumption, but also keeps clothes from getting wrinkled and extends the life of the fabric.
Avoid unnecessary wear and tear on your dryer by drying only what you need to. Dry on the dryer's lowest setting, or if that's not an option, let things air dry. When washing garments, lower heat is preferable since it reduces the risk of shrinking, fading, and other problems.
Dryer balls, as opposed to dryer sheets, promote air circulation, speed up the drying process, and prevent static cling.