Reducing energy and eliminating water use during the textile dyeing and decorating process is our life’s work. Unfortunately, that’s only small portion of what makes up your clothes carbon footprint. In fact, once you take that new pair of jeans home, that garment is going to keep on using lots of water and electricity.

How’s that possible? Easy, our washing machines and clothes dryers are to blame. If your an average family, six percent of your electric bill is due to your dryer use. In fact, half of the carbon footprint each garment leaves behind happens at the consumer level.

What choice do you have though? Remember back thirty or forty years ago when many families, even middle class families, didn’t have a dryer? Instead they hung their clothes out to dry. My family did the same, and we lived on a third floor flat in San Francisco. Now, most of us want the convenience of a dryer, the warmth of a sweater right out of the machine. Perhaps the whole “clothesline look” just doesn’t appeal to you. But, what about the fresh smell of clothes dried outside? Not to mention the savings on your utility bill? And then there’s climate change to consider too.

Levi Strauss & Co is out to change your mind about backyard clotheslines. They’ve launched the Clean Air Design Challenge. Starting June 1, you’re encouraged to submit an innovative design for a better clothesline. The goal is to find a sustainable and stylish way for us to air dry our clothes. The winner will snag $10,000.

If you’re not the inventor type, there’s still a part you can play. You can vote for your favorite designs and help choose the winner and take the pledge to:

• wash your jeans in cold
• line dry them
• donate old jeans to Goodwill when you’re done with them.

This isn’t the first time Levi’s has been out front on sustainability. They’ve been ahead of their peers in the clothing industry on issues such as child labor, water quality standards at the factories, and sustainable cotton production.

Are you ready to take the pledge? If not, what’s holding you back?

photo credit: Professor Bob/Flickr