No, this isn't about pie.  It's about drying your clothes.  A new clothes dryer can cost anywhere from $400 to well north of a thousand smackeroos.  And although they are handy if you live in an area subject to bitter cold or long periods of rain, chances are that for at least half of the year you could just dry your clothes the old fashioned way: by letting them hang to dry.

Sure it can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but if you're trying to save energy and "be green" it really doesn't make sense to use electricity to do something you could do for free.

There are a few options for drying your clothes that don't involve electricity:

A folding drying rack is a handy way to dry common lightweight items like t-shirts and underwear.  They range in price from $5 to about $80 for fancier-looking models.  One great thing about these types of racks is they can accommodate a wide variety of different shaped items and if you're trying to dry something that is just sopping wet you can stand it in your bathtub to drain the excess water that drips off.  In fact, there are even specialty folding bathtub drying racks available for about $35 that are designed specifically for drying clothes in your tub.

Indoor retractable drying lines are another simple way to dry clothes indoors, but you'll need a few simple handyman skills to install one.  Available in single, double and even quintuple line models, there are two things to be wary of with retractable lines: suction cups and magnets.  Your line kit should require that each end be securely screwed into two opposing walls and the retractable line should have a reinforced hook attachment.  Suction cups and magnets may make for an easy installation, but you'll be cursing them when your damp clothes are in a wrinkled pile in your bathtub.

Drying outside isn't very popular nowadays, but there's no better way to get a big laundry job dry quickly.  Outdoor retractable drying lines, unlike indoor ones, are exposed to the elements everyday and have a very short life.  You can install an umbrella-style rack, but these do not to fare well on windy days.  Umbrella-style hangers also end to attract birds, which is not cool when you come out to collect you laundry all covered in bird poop!  The final argument against these racks is that installing one properly is a huge pain in the butt.  You have to dig a big hole, pour concrete... and if you're going to go through all that trouble you might as well install a proper outdoor clothesline post.  Kits containing pulleys, fasteners and cord run in the $30-$50 range and once installed can last for years.  If you're clever, you may be able to rig your clotheline to span from your patio or across fenceposts and avoid having to install an extra pole at all.

There is one other option... one that involves buying nothing new at all but sacrificing one old bath towel.  Take one old bath towel and cut a 4-inch wide strip out of it.  Pull your shower curtain aside or remove it, lay the strip of towel across the top of the shower curtain bar and you have an instant drying rack!  So why a towel strip?  1) A whole towel is too heavy and might put too much strain on the bar, plus it prevents air circulation. 2) The towel fabric will wick moisture away from the wet fabric.  Dishrags and other materials will retain moisture instead of helping to dry your clothes.  3) Have you seen the top of your curtain rod?  There can be dust, rust, soap residue and other stuff up there that you wouldn't want all over your favorite pajamas!  As for the remaining towel, cut into squares and you've got some reusable cleaning rags. ;)

So there you have it: inside or outside there are so many cheap and easy ways to dry your clothes without using electricity that even if you use your dryer for 80% of your clothes, there's no reason you can't use one of these ideas and cut-down on the power consumption of your dryer this week!

» How to install a clothesline post

Hit the jump to see today's quiz question.  Hurry, there's only one day left before the contest closes!  It's your second-to-last chance to win the awesome, eco-friendly Ceram-Eco cookware set from Starfrit!

» Starfrit Contest

This is hardly breaking news, but let's face it: hemp has a pretty big image problem.  The most outspoken supporters of hemp production are more concerned about its THC content (the stuff that gets you stoned) and control by the Illuminati (I'm not kidding) than they are about true environmental benefits.  A bunch of white dudes with dreadlocks are probably not the supporters you want if you're going to champion the acceptance of hemp to the mainstream of society.  The diagram on the right illustrates all of the great uses for hemp without the assistance of Harold and Kumar (or Cheech and Chong for our old readers), and this is what the common consumer needs more education on.

Hemp is grown in the EU, Canada and China and the variety that's grown is a cannabis subspecies that is very high in fibre (great for making stuff out of), but not so great for smoking (sorry, dudes).  The United States imports more industrial hemp than any other nation, but is ironically the only industrialized nation that still bans the cultivation of this wonder crop.

The oil from hemp seeds can be used to make plastics, skin creams and even paint!  In France Hempcrete is commonly used building material that uses hemp as a strengthening agent.  But the real story about hemp is in the fibre.

Way back in 1916 (woo!), the USDA issued a bulletin that reported 1 acre of cannabis hemp produced a comparable amount of fibre suitable for making paper as 4.1 acres of trees while requiring only a small fraction of the chemicals required to turn wood fibre into paper.  And yet here we are nearly a hundred years later and a misguided "War on Drugs" is preventing American farmers from growing this supercrop right in their own backyard.

With a chaotic and unpredicatable future ahead we could be in for some real shake-ups due to global warming and a crazy economy.  More than ever we should be looking at crops like industrial hemp that give us a big return on the resources (water, land, energy) we put into it.

As a consumer, you owe it to yourself to get educated.  Hit the jump and read-through the Wikipedia article on hemp to get started.

» Hemp (Wikipedia)

That's right, kiddies!  It's hard to believe that our draw for the winner of the 9-piece Starfrit Ceram-Eco cookware set is almost upon us.  We've had thousands of entries so far, but there's still a chance for you to win!  Hit the jump to answer our daily quiz question!

» Starfrit Contest

Ecover isn't some small product marketing company that has jumped on the green bandwagon with a warehouse full of pretty bottles and an ad campaign.  Ecover has been in the green game for over 25 years, marketing phosphate-free laundry detergent in Europe before it became "the thing" to do.  Now Ecover products are sold in more than 20 countries inclusing most of Europe, the UK, the US, Canada, even Japan.

They sell pretty much every type of dish, laundry and household cleaner you'll ever need and they are true industry leaders.  They test their products for biodegradability and impact on aquatic life, they use recyclable packaging and they disclose all of their product ingredients on their web site.

So if you recognize the brand at your local store, don't confuse them with imitators.  Ecover was in the green game long before it was trendy and there's much more to their products than an "eco" label.  Hit the jump to learn more about Ecover products available in your area.

» Ecover

The products labels say it all: "I'm great all over the house", "Let me do your dishes", "I promise I'll be gentle".  Cleaning products that speak for themselves and packed in clear bottles, B_E_E (Beauty Engineered for Ever) is a New Zealand based company that offers your standard array of green cleaning products: laundry liquid, laundry powder, fabric wash for delicates, fabric whitener, multi-surface cleaner and dishwashing liquid.

What's interesting about B_E_E products, aside from the clever marketing, is the effort put into the sensual aspects of the products and the South Pacific touches.  Their fabric whitener contains South Pacific kawakawa (a traditional Maori healing herb) and their delicate fabric wash has been infused with esseential oils of lavendar, beramot and patchouli.

Many of their products contain kawakawa, sugar and coconut.  The only fault I do find in their products is the use of palm oil, the production of which is devastating the few remaining wild orangutan habitats.  They don't say so specifically on their site, but I would hope they are sourcing their palm oil from local sources and not places like Borneo and Sumatra. The B_E_E web site is a little short on information in general.  For example, are their containers made from recycled materials?  Can I return bulk-sized bottles to B_E_E retailers for recycling or reuse?  A little more info would be useful and even after a bit of online hunting I could find very little additonal info.

Hit the jump to learn more about B_E_E and if you see one of these bottles "speaking" to you from a shelf at your local market be sure to give them a try.

» B_E_E