Here Are More Sustainable Ways to Do Laundry, the Dishes, Shower, Brush Your Teeth, and Shave

You may not give a second thought to many parts of your daily routine such as morning or evening lavations, how you shave, the temperature of the water when doing the laundry, or the never-ending question of whether or not to rinse dishes before placing them into the dishwasher, but perhaps you should.
Here’s our guide to what you should be doing that’s both good for you and good for the environment, while at the same time combatting climate change.
If one were to give some thought to the matter, one might wonder why it’s necessary to use scalding hot water when modern laundry detergents perform quite well in warm and even cold water. Indeed, your clothes will thank you for not using hot water because they will last longer (the same goes for hot dryer cycles, incidentally).
Before going further, it is beyond the scope of this reportage to look at potential toxicity in cleaning products but I would refer you to the Environmental Working Group, an association that tests and publishes information about potentially toxic chemicals in such products as well as pollutants in drinking water. What I found out about my favorite laundry detergent, Tide Free, namely that it’s free of scents but not free of toxic chemicals that may cause asthma and respiratory issues as well as developmental and reproductive toxicity, surprised me and it may surprise you as well. While we are on the subject, whatever you do, do not use pods, as they are encased in plastic and result in more unrecyclable microplastics that find their ways into places one doesn’t really wish to think about. In addition, don’t use more detergent than necessary, as it appears that the manufacturers of laundry detergents encourage overuse in order to sell more product.
New Croton Reservoir is  part of the New York City water supply system and is located approximately 22 miles (35 km) north of the city. It is the collecting point for water from all reservoirs in the Croton Watershed.
So as Baroness-to-be Maria von Trapp sings in “The Sound of Music,” let’s start at the very beginning.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, heating water is responsible for over 10% of both annual residential energy use as well as consumer utility fees. Only air conditioning and heating use more energy in your home.
The typical American household (picture a 1960s situation comedy in black-and-white where the mother is a homemaker and the father comes home in a suit  and tie, briefcase in hand, from some never-really-explained job at a mysterious office) uses 65 gallons (246 liters) of hot water each day – an amount that would fill the typical bathtub – through a variety of uses including brushing teeth, showering, doing laundry, washing the dishes, and on other occasions when one runs the taps in the W.C. and in the kitchen.
Lowering the cost of hot-water usage can be approached from two different directions, namely 1.) replace your current heating system with a heat pump,  often a costly proposition, although it will pay for itself in several years, or 2.) simply use less of the hot wet stuff.
Filtered water being poured from a Pan American World Airways pitcher.
Each load of laundry run on the hot-water setting uses approximately 25 gallons (95 liters) of water, slightly less than half a bathtub full.  When looking at the total energy used by a washing machine set to hot, 90% of the energy cost comes from heating the water. Switching to warm instead of hot cuts that figure in half and there are very few circumstances where the outcome won’t be just as good. Using cold water reduces energy costs even more, by up to 90%.
You can parlay that into additional energy savings by running the clothes dryer for shorter periods of time (most people operate on a “set it and forget it” principle) and hanging almost but not-quite-dry laundry on a clothes line or drying rack will do wonders for your energy consumption and electric bills.
It’s not just laundry, however. Dermatologists recommend that their patients wash their faces with cold water. Cold water helps tighten the skin’s blood vessels, reducing the appearance of puffiness. After exfoliating or using active ingredients, washing one’s face with cold water can also soothe any redness or irritation that may appear. Chilled water can also be soothing for certain skin conditions, such as rosacea or acne.
The same goes for washing one’s hands and brushing one’s teeth.  Why needlessly cause the skin on one’s hands to dry out, and why keep the tap open while using a toothbrush given that the water literally goes down the drain?
When it comes to bathing, showers of a duration of roughly ten minutes using warm or (gasp!) even cold water will be more beneficial and less drying to the skin.
What would you say if I told you how to cut up to one-third of the carbon emissions from your daily shower simply by changing your soap? It’s quite true and depends largely on the soap’s ingredients and packaging.
Simply put, the most sustainable way to wash your hands or lather up in the shower is with an old-fashioned bar of soap, which is exactly what I do and which humans have done for millennia.
The larger the bar size, the lower one’s carbon emissions will be on a per shower basis.
Many people believe that a camel’s hump stores water. In fact, actually stores fat. The camel uses it as nourishment when food is scarce
Researchers at the Institut für Umweltingenieurswissenschaften at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, or the Institute for Environmental Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in a study entitled “Comparing the Environmental Footprints of Home-Care and Personal-Hygiene Products: The Relevance of Different Life-Cycle Phases” found that, “[T]o reduce environmental burdens, products should, for instance, be produced in concentrated form, while consumers should apply correct product dosages and low water temperatures during product application.”
The problem with bar soap is that it contains ingredients that can dry out one’s skin. Further compounding the environmental issue, starting in the late 1970s, soap manufacturers began to offer liquid soaps with extra ingredients that moisturize the skin. Liquid soap, of course, comes in bottles, which are 19 times more energy-intensive as packaging for bar soap, according to the ETH study. However, soap manufacturers today are offering similar if not the same moisturizing ingredients in bar soap so the green choice here is clear. Ultimately, it takes a village to make a difference here but, collectively, as the world’s population showers and bathes and wash hands – something that takes place many more times a day since the advent of the pandemic – the environmental toll of using soap with synthetic ingredients in hard-to-dispose-of packaging adds up.
Collectively, when you consider that billions of people wash their hands or bathe hundreds or thousands of times a year, this is a somewhere where a small individual change can make a difference.. If you’re so inclined, it makes sense to switch
If you need to start with a steamy blast, go ahead but then bring the temperature down to something more temperate.
When it comes to washing the dishes, virtually every scientific study on the topic found that using the dishwashing machine is far more environmentally friendly than hand-washing dirty dishes. In addition, modern dishwashers do not require dishes to be rinsed before being loaded, although they should be scraped clean of detritus.
Scientists at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn found that using the dishwasher uses at least 50% less energy, one-sixth of the water, and less soap than hand-washing an identical set of dirty dishes, but pre-rinsing them before putting them into the machine does in fact rinse away all of the potential savings.
The upper two trays of a dishwasher with dirty dishes that have not been pre-rinsed
Finally, when it comes to lavations, there’s one more area where one can be far more green: shaving.
Shaving has been a regular practice by both men and women for millennia. It is practiced by men to remove facial hair and by women to remove leg and underarm hair. The first razors were developed in the Chalcolithic Age. As copper tools were developed the first razors were invented. Alexander the Great, who lived from 356 B.C.E. to 323 B.C.E. promoted the idea of shaving one’s facial hair for soldiers going into battle so that the enemy could not grab them by the beard.
Straight razors were popular for several centuries, since their invention in Sheffield, England, in 1680, until they were largely rendered obsolete around 1939 with the increased adoption of the safety razor, which dates back to 1876 and, later, the invention of the electric shaver.
A major shift occurred at the turn of the last century with the invention of the double-edged safety razor by King Camp Gillette (yes, King was his first name and also his only son’s first name as well). The use of a double-edged safety razor with inexpensive, disposable blades was an unbeatable combination and Gillette, who traveled extensively later in life, was universally recognized by people thanks to the presence of his visage on his products’ packaging.
Electric razors can be environmentally friendly as they do not require the use of water, lathering, containers of shaving cream, and regular bi-weekly changes of blades.  The first electric razor was invented by Jacob Schick in 1928. Businessman Victor Kiam reinvigorated sales of the product after becoming CEO and the company’s chief spokesman on commercials with his timeless quote, “My wife bought me this Remington shaver. I liked it so much I bought the company.”
Today, however, Americans throw out at least 2 billion disposable razors and blade cartridges each year, according to figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This adds up to over one million pounds (454,000 kg) in plastic waste, which then breaks down into microplastics.
500 ml bottles of San Pelligrino mineral water. The madness of drinking bottled water produced halfway across the globe has yet to be recognized. It ignores the long-term environmental impacts of bottling and transporting water across borders.
Microplastics have not only made their way north, south, east, and west and but also managed to infiltrate what have been considered inviolable human body organs. Now a study found that these tiny particles of decomposed plastic have made their ways into men’s testicles and could be responsible for the decline in sperm count over the past five decades.
“The ubiquitous existence of microplastics and nanoplastics raises concerns about their potential impact on the human reproductive system,” reads a sentence from the study published in the journal Toxicological Sciences.
In addition to being found in human testes in the course of autopsies, they were also found in the testes of man’s best friend.
However, there’s a better way to shave that doesn’t create tons of plastic waste and it has a lot to do with the very tools people were using a little over one hundred years ago: the safety razor.
The old-school safety razor uses a handle that should last for decades and a single disposable blades that have to be replaced every few weeks, depending on beard density and frequency of use.
While safety razors cost more than both disposable razors and those that use disposable cartridges, the savings quickly add up over time, as the blades are as little as $0.15 versus $3.00 for a typical disposable cartridge or razor.
The payback period can range between a few months and a year, depending on the safety razor in question. Prices range from $20 to over $100.
Rainwater may contain bacteria, pollutants, and parasites, so it should be filtered and disinfected before drinking.
With safety razors come two caveats. 1.) How one disposes of the blades is important as they are sharp and cannot be tossed into recycling where they could injure workers. Similar to what one sees at a physician’s office, it’s typical to have  a sharps container of some kind and just toss the blades in. Many pharmacies will accept the blades if stored in an appropriate container. 2.) Using a safety razor will require the user to relearn his shaving technique because, unlike cartridge razors, safety razors usually don’t have a head that pivots while in use so the user must keep the head at an approximate 30° angle.
In addition, give strong consideration to switching from pressurized cans of shaving cream to either tubes of shaving lotion or shaving soap and lather brushes.
Finally, another way of reducing one’s carbon footprint is to install a water softening system if you have hard, i.e. high mineral count, water. This makes hard water soft. A more scientific explanation is that such units work to remove calcium, magnesium, and other minerals from the water. They use resin beads inside the softener to trap the calcium and magnesium and exchange them for sodium or potassium, which must be added by the homeowner.
Softening one’s water at home has myriad benefits. Soft water results in a better lather from less soap and a better overall bathing and lavation. By softening water, the harmful effects that hard water has on the body – such as the destruction of natural oils in skin and hair, which in turn can dry out the skin and scalp, causing itchiness and irritation. When it comes to laundry or dishwashing, having soft water present means one need only use a fraction of laundry detergent or dishwashing soap that would otherwise be required with hard water.
This not only results in cleaner and healthier hair and skin but eliminates the hard water mineral buildup that shortens the life of appliances and pipes. Severe hard water levels and mineral deposits can also cause damage to the plumbing as well as water-using appliances such as coffee makers and ice machines.
With soft water, since less water is required to dissolve soap and cleaners, the home’s carbon footprint can be significantly lowered.
BOTTOM LINE
To summarize:
1.)       When doing laundry, use warm or cold water, don’t use more detergent than necessary, and avoid detergent pods. Don’t fully dry clothes in the dryer; let them air dry to completion once they are almost dry. Consider replacing your liquid laundry detergent, with its non-eco-friendly packaging, with a newer detergent sheet products.
2.)       When doing the dishes, scrape the plates off but don’t pre rinse. Run the shortest cycle necessary to result in sparkling clean dishes and consider not using heated drying and just opening the machine at the end of the cycle instead.
3.)       Wash with cool or lukewarm water to minimize dry skin, use bar soap instead of liquid soap, and don’t linger in the shower unless you are showering for two.
4.)       Switch from high-plastic-content disposable razors and cartridge blades to safety razors and from pressurized cans of shaving cream to either tubes of shaving lotion or shaving soap and lather brushes.
Jonathan Spira, Basilio Alferow, Tim Perry, and Ellen Martin contributed reporting to this story.
(Photos: Accura Media Group)