Who says that we shouldn't air our laundry in public?

Certainly not the growing number of clothesline activists -- such as the folks at Project Laundry List [1]-- who'd love to see more of us proudly let our undies fly and dry in the breeze. They've dubbed Thursday National Hanging Out Day [2] to stress the eco-friendliness of clotheslines.

The group has posted tons of information and great reasons to step away from the dryer. After poking around on their site, I found lots of interesting facts and statistics. Among them:

• A recent Cambridge University study [3] found that 60 percent of the energy spent on clothing comes from washing and drying it.
  

• A single T shirt puts about 9 lbs. of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

• There are some 88 million dryers in the country. If we all dried our clothes outside for six months, we'd reduce the country's total residential CO2 output by 3.3 percent.

• A New York Times [4] reporter, inspired to forego her dryer, found that using a clothesline slashed her electric bill by more than 50 percent, from $1,120 to about $576.

With a load of enthusiasm and freshly laundered whites, I decided to give it a try. After all, I'm not upgrading to high-efficiency appliances [4] in the near future. And there's really no excuse to use a dryer in Albuquerque, given our ample sunshine and arid climate.

Unfortunately, my mission quickly turned into a mishap. First of all, my makeshift clothesline (I strung up some twine between two trellises) wasn't strong enough to hold even the most lightweight of my clothes. It quickly became obvious that I'd need a real clotheslines to pull this off. Near as I can figure, installing a clothesline involves digging potholes and mixing cement -- a bit of a problem because I'm adverse to hard labor.

Apart from the clothesline dilemma, the other problem turned out to be the weather. Spring brings gusty, gritty winds, and before I finished pinning my last camisole to the line, my pristine whites were covered with dust, elm seedlings, and enough pollen to kill me. [4] I had no choice. I ended up rewashing those whites, before tossing them in the dryer.

Even though my initial attempt failed, I was heartened by the fact that the Times reporter also faced challenges (towels like sandpaper, homeowner association issues, time constraints) as she made the switch. She eventually worked through those problems -- and ultimately I hope I do the same.

But I'm waiting till the summer before I try again.

Art Credit: Gretchen Markle [5]