Raise Standards: When reading about some famous people, we are told they wear clothes a few hours, drop them on the floor as many as five times a day for others to launder. Now we hear of children expecting fresh clothes numerous times a day. Please, please raise your standards for washing. Cleanliness is not next to Godliness. Water and energy conservation are essential today, so be happy when you put clothes back for reuse rather than into a laundry basket. In many societies, they use comforters (duvets) without a top sheet and put the comforter out in the sun to air out, rather than washing sheets every week. Try to limit the number of loads you do.  


Use the Latest Washer: For years, I used our old washing machine, and in the summer, with a submersible pump, first sent the used water to our tub.  Then, the water was pumped through the hose going out the window to a rain barrel where I would use it within a day or two on the garden. Greywater can not be kept very long because the bacteria build up, leading to some nasty smells. 


Finally, I realized that this old machine required a lot of drinking water, so we hauled this about-to-break clunker off to metal recycling, where hopefully it will be reincarnated into an electric car. I now use an off-site commercial front-loader that uses perhaps 14 gallons of water. I regret that this does not send the water out to the garden, but it’s not mine to fiddle with- ideally it would. When calculating our water usage, I add this to the water consumption of our house. Be very diligent about limiting the use of clothes washers. Always have a full load with only the clothes that fail the nose test.