Clothes pins. I was actually just pondering this, I ponder it quite a bit really. Because it’s one of those essential items whose production can be localized and potentially give a livelihood to many individual artisans.
And, as so often happens when I am pondering something that seems small and obscure, I found the very thing on the Internet that I was talking about! Right down to his advocacy of a decentralized model with makers in every region.
These clothespins are equipped with sturdy springs. But a local micro-business could just as well choose to offer the kind of clothespins that are made from a single piece of wood and don’t require any springs.
“Classic American Clothespins is a small, home-based business with a big mission. My family and I are bringing the manufacture of high-quality, spring-and-wood clothespins back to America. Our goal is not to be an enormous, centralized clothespin manufacturing company, but to re-introduce a well-made, useful clothespin and encourage the small-scale, decentralized production of these clothespins by entrepreneurial woodworkers all across the nation. …”
http://classicamericanclothespins.blogspot.com/2013/09/home-page.html?m=1
I am nearing the bottom of my stash of clothespins which I inherited from Mom and Dad’s house. Within that stash were many obviously older and sturdier clothespins, as well as newer less sturdy ones. Also included in the mix are clothespins without springs, just made from one piece of wood.
There’s nothing like a clothesline for drying clothes, as far as I’m concerned. Truly I consider a drying machine to be inferior in multiple ways. Even if it weren’t costly in energy terms, it’s a machine that can break down. And all too often the clothes don’t end up truly dry. And also they end up smelling like some chemical product. Nope, it’s line-dried laundry all the way for me!
Also, laundry can be dried in a shady breezeway area. Or even just one of the breezier rooms of your house. The shade option is good for times and places where it’s not sunny for a while, or if you have some garments that are particularly susceptible to fading.
For drying indoors or in small spaces, those old-fashioned wooden folding laundry racks are a goddess-send. They can be made of plastic too. I found a wooden one, and then a bigger plastic one, at curbside years ago and been using them for many years.