Rising Sun Energy Center provides an answer to wasting energy by installing free retractable clotheslines in homes through its California Youth Services program, a summer program that hires youth, ages 15-22, and trains them to serve communities across the Bay Area.

The youth group answers free house calls where they check the home for efficiency, install free energy and water saving equipment and provide personal recommendations for future saving, Rising Sun Energy Center’s website says.

Only steps from Berkeley’s City Hall in the Civic Center Park, the Rising Sun Energy Center hosted a free event last Wednesday, to promote the environmental benefits of line drying clothes to the community of Berkeley. The event took place from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and dried the clothes of community members, partner organizations and even the mayor of the city.

The event featured large clotheslines used to draw attention not only to the benefits of air drying and cold washing for the environment, but also to other sustainable efforts people can easily use in their own homes to save energy, water, and money.

“These emissions are harming our planet and our future,” said Executive Director of Rising Sun Energy Center Jodi Pincus. “It’s up to us to do something and at Rising Sun we are proactively addressing these warning signs head on. At this event we are asking everybody here and beyond to join us.”

In the United States, the average household washes and dries over 400 loads of laundry per year. Since clothes dryers are typically the second largest energy hog appliance in the home (behind the refrigerator), carbon emissions from a single household can amount to nearly 23,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. That is equivalent to 114 gallons of gasoline or carbon sequestered by 46 adult trees, says a statistic from the simpleecology.com

“This is a wake-up call and if we do not support clean energy technology and reduce manmade greenhouse gas emissions, the future of our children and our grandchildren looks bleak,” Pincus said. “This is particularly true to my heart as I am expecting my second child this year.”

By using clotheslines for even half a year, residents can save over 60 dollars on energy costs and even more by choosing to wash clothes on a cold cycle rather than on warm or hot, says Rising Sun.

Air drying your clothes, washing them in cold water, and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs in your home, which use 75 percent less energy than a regular light bulb, are just a few simple things you can do to make a difference, Pincus said.

“Now what’s even better is that our programs at Rising Sun can do this for you,” she said. “And not only will you be supporting a local nonprofit, but you will be helping to put youth and adults who really desperately need employment opportunities to work in the green economy.”

Rising Sun Energy center is an organization focused on workforce development in the sustainability sector. Their mission is to empower individuals to achieve environmental sustainability for themselves and their communities.

“When I was growing up there were no dryers in our houses,” Berkeley’s Vice-Mayor Linda Mayo said. “Everybody leaned out of the back window with a clothesline and communed with the trees and with their neighbors, and hung out the underwear, and that’s the way it was. But there’s a big, more compelling reason to do this now.”