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SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Levi Strauss & Co. is looking for innovative ideas for air drying clothes in an effort to slash the amount of energy used around the country to dry clothing.
The company's Care to Air contest, running until July 31, seeks ideas that improve on or replace the clothesline, offering a total of $10,000 in prizes.
Levi's research into the life cycle impacts of its jeans has found that about 60 percent of their impact on the climate comes from consumer use, and 80 percent of that is from drying.
Hanging clothes to dry is an obvious way to reduce the energy and environment footprint of clothing since air drying doesn't consume any electricity.
But, 92 percent of households have dryers, and many city and apartment dwellers don't have yards, balconies or anywhere to hang clotheslines outside.
The Care to Air contest, being run through Myoo Create, hopes to change that by gathering new air drying ideas. Anyone can submit and vote on ideas through the contest website. Ideas will be accepted until July 31, then five finalists will be named. Two will be chosen by a judging panel and three will be based on votes from Myoo users. The winners will be announced Aug. 16.
All five finalists will receive $500. First place gets $4,500, second place receives $1,500, the crowd favorite (based on votes) receives $1,000, and the most valuable Myoo community member gets $500.
The contest expands on Levi's Care Tag For Our Planet campaign, which is an effort to help consumers lower the impacts of their clothing by informing them, on clothing care tags, to use cold water when washing, line dry, and donate old clothing to Goodwill.
Drying jeans - CC license by Flickr user Violentz
Here is a challenging
Here is a challenging innovative idea for Levi Strauss & Co. Ever thought of mass sales to 70% of Rural India's 1.2 billion population who handwash and air dry their clothes in the sunshine ... the least energy used for drying clothes.
Will read more: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/06/03/levi-strauss-contest-aims-build-...
Eight weeks ago, I returned to New York from India where I was researching what is happening in Rural India ... by visiting some of the poorest of poor villages in Mewat district of Haryana State.
What I found surprising was how the young farmers where immitating the visiting urban and city folks by wearing Levi blue jeans - Here's a suggestions - how about producing the rugged Levi blue jeans for Rural India ? You have a population of over 70% of the 1.2 billion population that would buy ...
Levi Strauss would do better
Levi Strauss would do better to offer the option of the Levis us old fogies remember - stiff and canvas-like when new, a pain to wear until after a few uses, but pants which would survive many years of use. With pre-eroded material and acid- and stone-washing, the pants don't last anywhere near as long. Great for Levi Strauss and its investors, not so great for those of us who buy and wear pants. Offer us pants which will last three times as long as the pre-eroded pants. That'll reduce the need for cotton, and the water and other resources needed to grow it, and will help towards the goal of reducing the resource load of their product.
(Haven't used a dryer since 1985, but don't need one in central Arizona...)
This is a silly
This is a silly contest...just buy a folding drying rack. I have two racks from amazon each cost $45. They fold down to nothing and slide under my couch (storage in SF apt is a problem too). I put my clothes on them, push them off to side of my dining room and over night, my clothes are dry.
it seems most of the rest of
it seems most of the rest of the world just hangs their clothes and it works just fine.
I live in asia and my apartment is very small. I sometimes miss having a dryer during monsoon season when the air is so humid it takes days for jeans to dry. However, simply hanging them indoors is not really a problem and most of the year my clothes dry just fine, sometimes overnight. I just use hangers and a clothes rack on wheels. dead simple and effective.
Not really a problem over
Not really a problem over here in australia, I was utterly amazed at how much americans use dryers as opposed to the cloths line.
Levis have made a fantastic point though, the process of the dryer and that excess heat on the denim fabric really speeds up the destruction process.