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Canmore students hopeful community members will Ditch the Dryer

“We as individuals have to start making changes to start helping our environment.”
MG 44 Ditch the Dryer
Quinn Blyth, 16, left and Ben Gerrits, 15, show off Gerrit's family clothes line. SUBMITTED PHOTO

CANMORE–  A pair of Canmore Collegiate High School students has launched a green initiative in a bid to help save the environment one load of laundry at a time.

Ben Gerrits, 15 and Quinn Blyth, 16, launched the Ditch the Dryer campaign to inspire people to air-dry their clothes.

“It’s a change behaviour campaign – we’re trying to get people to make a small step towards a larger issue,” Gerrits said.

The students were inspired by their Grade 11 biology class action project that explored different choices they could make that benefit the environment.

Climate change can often feel like an overwhelming issue for many people, Blyth said, explaining that ditching the dryer is an easy, tangible action people can take on their journey to living a little greener.

“It’s something people can do every day and it can make a substantial change," he said.

Upon launching the project, Blyth said he was surprised how hesitant people are to do something that helps combat the climate crisis and reduce energy consumption at home.

“They’re just watching and waiting for businesses to take charge in global warming,” Blyth said.

Inspired by the climate action taking place around the world, they officially began working on the project in September. Gerrits said they were further fuelled to promote the campaign after Canmore declared a climate emergency on Oct. 1.

“This was an idea to help combat that,” Gerrits said. “We’re just trying to do more steps to save the environment.”

People are always calling on the government or corporations to make changes to protect the environment, Gerrits said, without making lifestyle adjustments that can help.

“It comes back around to us,” Gerrits said. “We as individuals have to start making changes to start helping our environment.”

After gathering information on the amount of energy used in a dryer cycle, Blyth said he was surprised to learn that the average load of laundry releases 1.8 kilograms of carbon dioxide.

“I don’t think people realize how much carbon dioxide it actually produces,” he said. “They know about how much energy is, but they don’t know how much of a footprint it creates.”

Gerrits hails from a family of five and they quit using the dryer about five years ago.

“We’ve been better off without it,” Gerrits said. “You can save money, save the environment and air dry clothes.”

The Canmore community lives in the perfect province for air-drying clothes, Blyth added, because it is one of the driest environments in the country. A laundry line, even in the winter, can dry clothes in around three hours.

If a home lacks the space for a laundry line, Blyth said laundry racks are just as efficient.

The pair spoke with the Paintbox Lodge owners Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner because they have taken active steps to adjust their lifestyle to help the environment – including ditching the dryer.

“It’s out of the box thinking,” Renner said. “They can take these tangible steps right at home.”

Renner said it is great to see high school students engaging in campaigns that can help the environment. Grandi and Renner quit using a dryer in their family home 15 years ago. They have a drying rack that uses a pulley system to load the device and then hoist it up to the ceiling.

“It’s hotter up there. It dries quickly,” she said, adding that it was a great addition to their household because it allows them to go dryer free year-round.

“We can humidify our home and dry our clothes at the same time.”

They were motivated to make the change, Renner said because they were “aware dryers were such a big suck of electricity.”

Steps like not using the dryer are about creating habits she said, highlighting that in Europe most households do not typically have a dryer and instead hang-dry their clothes.

“You just get in the habit of it,” Renner said. “A lot of these small things that we do are not a big deal – to be climate aware is actually not a huge quality-of-life step back.”

Given the current climate crisis, she said, there is an obligation to take responsibility for how lifestyle choices impact the environment and the space one occupies in the planet. There are steps people can take to consume less, Renner added, because ultimately as a society there is a need to take less.

“I think people are afraid of losing this high standard of living that we have,” she said.

While it can prove challenging to change people's perspectives, Gerrits said, he and Blyth are hoping to build a big social media presence so people can see how easy it is to ditch the dryer.

“If you see other people that are doing it successfully … then you’ll have a better chance of wanting to make the change yourself,” Gerrits said.

To find out more information on the Ditch the Dryer campaign or to post a photo of your laundry lines follow @ditchthedryer on Facebook or on Instagram.

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