ecozone.com
Written: Monday, April 19, 2010A LOAD OFF YOUR MIND
The average mum spends five months of her life 'doing the laundry', a study found yesterday (Sun).
Research revealed it takes the typical mother 26 minutes to go through arduous pre and post-wash tasks every time she turns on the machine.
And with every mum ploughing her way through around six loads of washing a week that means two hours and 36 minutes are spent on the laundry.
On top of that she can expect to spend 55 minutes a week ironing clothes which have come out of the machine in a creased state.
But six in ten are wasting their time by admitting to washing clothes which aren't that dirty or completely unworn.
Yesterday MD Simeon Van der Molen for laundry and cleaning company www.ecozone.com, which carried out the study of 4,400 mums, said: ''This shows how much work mums do around the house for other members of the family.
''All mums will tell you they spend their entire life doing the laundry and they're right, it is a staggering amount of time.
''Carrying out tasks like pulling tissues out of pockets, pairing up socks, looking under beds or behind doors for underwear take up a large chunk of their life.
''And with the majority of the nation's kids returning to classrooms today (Mon), mums will have their hands full catching up with the washing and ironing.
''To make matters worse many mums are washing clothes that aren't even dirty while a quarter are wasting electricity and water but not using a full load.''
The time-scale was calculated by taking into consideration each aspect of the washing process.
These include six minutes hunting around the house searching for and gathering together dirty clothes left strewn around the floor by a husband or kids.
Once mum has rounded up the soiled laundry, she will also take four minutes checking for tissues, other items discarded in pockets as well as unbuttoning shirts and untangling socks before loading the clothes into the machine.
Once the machine's finished spinning mums will spend nine minutes hanging washing out to dry and another seven minutes folding up clothes and pairing up socks.
Each week mums slog it out for three hours and 31 minutes - or 183 hours a year - sorting out the washing.
And before their child hits 18 they spend 137 days or nearly five months of their life hard at work.
It also emerged the average mum can expect to wash 47 different items - many more than once - every week.
But despite their hard work, the study found millions of mums are not getting the best out of their machine.
It emerged one in three have never cleaned their spinner and a quarter admit they don't always make sure there's a full load of washing.
Tellingly, just under half of those polled said they wished their other half did more to help them around the house.
More than half (55 per cent) have put the washing machine on the wrong setting at least three times in the last year which has left their clothes spinning for far too long - a total of one and a half hours.
Six out of ten have left washed clothes in the machine by mistake which has meant they've had to be washed again.
The study among the nation's mums also found the average washing cycle lasts 68 minutes, but wash just three or four items in one load at least once a week.
The survey was carried out to mark the launch the firm's re-usable Ecoballs which cut washing times, electricity and costs.
