Clothes washing is another area with lots of ‘excess’ that can be trimmed with a little bit of thought and effort. 

1. Install a ‘solar clothes dryer’ in your yard.  That’s an ‘in joke’.  A ‘solar dryer’ is an old fashioned clothes line.  Yes, they are a bit less convenient, but the sun dries and sanitizes at the same time.  Your clothes smell better and last longer. 
2. Pick the most energy efficient clothes washer you can.  See the CEE Super Efficient Home Appliances Intitative’s Clothes Washer Recommendations.
3. Aside from the actual efficiency of the washer itself, the high-speed final spin cycle, which amounts to a centrifugal water extraction, is a VERY important feature becoming common in newer models.  This saves a tremendous amount of energy if you are going to dry the clothes in an automatic (electric or gas) clothes dryer.  It is of course preferable to dry your clothes naturally in the sun and breeze, in which case the high-speed spin is not needed.  But in today’s world we must all make the choices we can to save energy within our personal situation. 
4. Wash in cold water only.  Today’s detergents do a more than adequate job in cold water.  Hot or warm water is only needed for extremely greasy or dirty clothes.  The multiple ‘hot/warm’ settings were ‘features’ that were sold to us until we forgot that cold water works fine.  Arguably our fetish with super clean wash was ‘sold to us’ for the good of manufacturers and not society.  Personally, I will take ‘ring around the collar’*  in exchange for the ocean’s staying at their present level.

• • ‘Ring around the collar’ refers to an old advertising campaign that was effective at creating a new neurosis amongst housewives.