Dirty laundry

"America's attitude to the environment is best demonstrated by how it does it's laundry. Years ago, passing through an Amish town, I was puzzelled to find a postcards showing washing pegged on a line. It took me some time to figure out why this was considered so quaint and folksy as to be worth a picture. Because even in California cloths are rarely hung in the sun to dry; it's quicker to put them in an industrial sized drier, which not only gulps down electricity but wears out the fabric so that very soon you need to buy more clothes. Keep that economy rolling whatever the price - a policy that stinks worse than the dirtiest laundry."

Janice Turner, The Times