For example, take this sentence: "a recent study in the US indicated that Americans spend $9 billion dollars per year (!) on the electricity used to dry clothes."
Billions of dollars is bad(!), right?
But a quick division[1] with the population of the US shows that this is just $27.30 per capita per annum, or about $2 per week per household of 2 adults and 2 kids. Essentially nothing.
Mind you, I have the exact same model of drying rack that the author does and I use it regularly.
But is it necessarily better than an electric dryer?
No.
Racks have significant downsides:
- If the weather is too humid, the clothes won't dry fast enough and end up smelling of mildew. We then have to rewash them, which is wasteful and damages the clothes.
- Clothes dried on the track often end up stiff as cardboard or very wrinkled, and then need ironing, which also uses electricity. Clothes often come out of the dryer ready to wear, especially t-shirts. The heat and motion of the dryer fluffs them and removes wrinkles to a significant degree.
- Those racks tip over all too easily. We can't put it out on the balcony without propping it up with some chairs, the slightest breeze will knock it over. Once wet clothes hit the dirty outside floor, they have re-washed!
- They're a hazard to children. They not only fall over easily, but they tend to fold up in the process with enough force to break fingers or trap limbs. We're probably going to have to get rid of it entirely now that our little one is mobile.
Etc...
[1] Next time some political budget thing is announced on the news, pay careful attention to how they're describing the cost. Are they talking about the total dollars "over ten years" or the yearly cost per capita? Once you learn to notice this, you can mentally translate the former to "I want to make this cheap thing sound expensive." and the latter to "I want to make this expensive thing sound cheap."