I still haven't worked out how to use a washing machine. At 39, this is a bitter pill to swallow | Nell Frizzell

I have issues with laundry, caught between late 20th-century social expectations about cleanliness and 21st-century anxiety about ecological impact.

According to National Geographic, the world's washing machines use about 19bn cubic metres of water annually and emit an estimated 62m tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases each year.

I wash at 30C and use eco-friendly laundry liquid, but I feel guilt creeping in about the environmental costs of laundry.

Since I became a parent, laundry has made up, at a conservative estimate, about 98% of my life.

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