Oh, and electricity is cheaper in France than in California (this damn cheap power from EDF).
So yes, I fully concur: it's the lifestyle, and it's not so difficult to change it :-)
This is very interesting. The article indicated that electricity is more expensive in Italy and Denmark due to green taxes, and I thought that this was a major factor in deterring people in those countries from using dryers. But if electricity is cheaper in France than in the U.S., then it does raise the question as to why French (presumably) use dryers much less than Americans. (My mother, who lived in the U.S. for 25 years and used the dryer profusely there, moved back to Paris in 2005 and is forced to hang dry her clothes because there is no space for a dryer in her apartment.) La Chine dorme. Laisse la dormir. Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera.
As for me, I live in a house and the washer + dryer are in the garage, so no space issue there. I guess we've just come to consider using the dryer as a waste, since we can wait a half-day for the laundry to dry "naturally"...
Your friend who moved to the US seems to have gone the other (lifestyle) way. So did we when we were living there; I guess the notions of waste and time are different on both continents. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
