IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Why laundry?

Salutations, and thanks for checking out our campaign! 

My name is Susan Carpenter Sims, and Beyond Laundry is the passion project I've been wanting to launch for several years. I've been studying green building and sustainable living systems for over a decade, and when I moved to Taos, New Mexico in 2008, I started formulating the idea for a green laundry center. 

I'm a single mother of four who's relied on laundromats for most of my adult life, so it didn't take me long after moving here to realize that there was a need for one on the south end of town.

Almost immediately, I began to envision an alternative that involved rainwater harvesting and greywater irrigation of a garden on the premises. And I thought:

• Wouldn't it be nice to do your laundry somewhere clean and pleasant and spacious, with a lush greenhouse and a garden outside where you could sit and enjoy yourself while your clothes are washing? 
• And how cool would it be if there was free WiFi, and, say, a children's play area so that you weren't constantly trying to keep your kids from climbing into laundry carts and running around the place slamming washing machine doors? 
• And for that matter, how about if there was a snack bar selling healthy food, so that they wouldn't beg for candy bars from overpriced vending machines?
  

I started writing a business plan and looking for commercial washers & dryers that are highly energy- and water-efficient, and that's how I found our wonderful distributor, Bob Ropp of Sunshine Sales, who will provide us with the high-speed, environmentally-friendly Continental Girbau washers & dryers we'll use. 

Back in 2009, Bob actually came all the way to Taos from Arizona, and we looked at possible locations together. And then we sat down and talked about how much it would all cost - to get these top-of-the line machines & install them, and to remodel or build a building to handle high energy and water needs, as well as all the many things that go into starting any brick-and-mortar business.

At that time in my life, it was more than I could imagine raising; it just seemed impossible. And the truth is, I just wasn't ready. Sadly, I shelved the plan and focused on starting a writing & editing business instead, because I could do that with the very little money I already had.

Fast forward to the present

The last few years of living and running a business in this amazing, entrepreneurial, sustainability-oriented, innovation-encouraging town has grown me a lot. I've gained even more knowledge about green building, rainwater harvesting, and greywater recycling, not to mention how to run a business successfully. And now I have the confidence, experience, and skills to make it happen, not to mention a great team who's 100% behind this plan. We've been working hard to bring the vision to life, and as of July 7th, 2015, Beyond Laundry is officially a Limited Liability Company in the state of New Mexico. Woo hooo!!!

Yes, the startup costs are higher than average for a small business, but I believe that most people can easily recognize how practical, profitable, and positive this really is. That belief has already been confirmed by countless conversations with all kinds of people who invariably say:  "What a great idea!" 

And that's why we're running this campaign, because we trust that you, dear reader, will understand the beauty and importance of what we're doing, and will want to be part of it too.

What your backing will do for this project

Because we're building from the ground up, and because designing the greywater system is so site-specific, the first thing we need to do is buy land. There's an ideal one-acre lot for sale right now for $150,000, which is a great price for such a large lot with high visibility and easy access on the main road through town, AND it's on the south side of town, exactly where we want and need to be. 

As you can see in the video and photo below, there is currently a house trailer on the property that will be moved off, and where it is now is more or less where our building will eventually be. The whole back area of the lot can be for food-producing gardens and even an orchard.

Our goal for this Indiegogo campaign is to raise the funds to pay cash for this land, (We've made $160,000 our goal for this campaign so that, after paying for the land, we'll have money left over to cover the Indiegogo costs and those of sending out the perks we're offering to our backers.)  

Buying the land outright will help us leverage further funding we're going to need for construction and equipment, as I explain in this brief video tour of the lot:

And, since in the video I forgot to point out the south boundary, here's an aerial view:

Every donation we receive through this campaign will go towards buying the land: If we raise the total amount we'll buy it outright; if we don't, whatever amount we raise will go toward a down payment. 

If (heaven forbid!) the land sells before we can buy it, we'll go to Plan B: find another lot. And the beauty of our plan is that it's flexible, meaning that we can implement it as incrementally as we need to, and scale it to match available funding. The key is to tackle it one component at a time and build on successes as we go, and that starts with the land.

And, if we're so fortunate (and you all are so generous!) that we raise more than the we need for the land, the excess funding will go toward the next step: 

Constructing the building

We're excited to be partnering with Mark Goldman and his Green Construction Technology Program at the University of New Mexico-Taos. He's serving as a consultant to this project and helping us make decisions about the construction process. 

We're planning to utilize steel construction, which is both low-cost and environmentally friendly. The building is planned at 2400 sf, and we already have a preliminary floor plan, which Bob and the awesome guys at Continental Girbau put together based on my hand-drawn sketch:

How we'll say, "Thank You"

We have some cool goodies in store for you when you when you back us (besides the satisfaction that comes from knowing that you're a part of an innovative and replicable way to increase the health of the planet). 

For example, our regular-fit T-shirt:

and our bumper sticker (not larger than the T-shirt in real life, of course):

We're also offering some perks in the realm of free laundry service, and some for sponsor benefits, so you can pick the level of backing and the perk that's the best fit for you.

IMPORTANT:  Please do keep in mind that if you select a perk involving laundry service or sponsor benefits that involve recognition in the building itself, we're not going to be able to deliver those as quickly as the other perks. Once we buy the land we still have a building to construct and washers & dryers to install, and that's not going to happen overnight. But we'll continue to update this page and the website as we progress, so as our timeline unfolds, you'll know exactly what's happening as we go along.

Environmental & social impacts

We're planning to have 22 efficient washing machines and 24 dryers in our Taos location. We estimate that we can harvest about 29,000 gallons of rainwater a year from our roof, but that's only a small fraction of the amount needed for the washers, which we estimate at over a million gallons a year! 

However, that million gallons will also turn into valuable greywater after it runs through the washers, and we'll use it to irrigate a greenhouse, a community food garden, and an orchard.

And, even after all that, there will still be so much greywater left over that we'll purify and recycle it to reuse in the washers, meaning that we can bring our reliance on the town's water supply to basically nothing. 

We're also going to use solar for as much of our power source as we can, and will be seeking funding for this through the USDA Rural Energy for America Program, which helps small businesses in rural areas incorporate renewable energies at a very low cost.

That means we will have the following impacts:

• saving many thousands of gallons of precious water a year 
• producing healthy food for our community
• significantly reducing our carbon footprint 

Demolishing the paradigm of the "laundromat," baby!

But let's not forget about the laundry itself! 

Besides offering self-service laundry, we're also going to have a wash & fold service with optional pickup and delivery, allowing people who lack time and/or transportation to get their laundry done in a way they can feel good about.

We're going to operate the machines on a token system instead of quarters, and tokens will be available for sale at the counter as well as from a change machine. What this means is that customers can use debit or credit cards if they don't have cash. 

Another benefit to this system is that we'll offer tokens in exchange for volunteer hours in the community garden.

Beyond Laundry is going to be so awesome that 

And the picture gets even bigger

This enterprise has turned into so much more than what I originally envisioned. I have been fortunate to connect with local partners, as well as an international team focused on bringing projects like this to developing countries, where people often have no sanitary way to wash clothes. 

When I first started revisiting my business plan back in the spring, it serendipitously came to my attention that a social entrepreneurship class, offered online by Copenhagen Business School on Coursera, was about to start. So I signed right up and am so glad I did, because it's been life-changing in more ways than one. For one thing, that's how I connected with my global partners, Arun and Santi (who you can read about below).

Working with this course and the team formed from it opened up new horizons for the plan. The result is that our long term goals include opening multiple community laundry centers in the US, and using at least 10% of our profits to work with NGOs that address water issues in developing countries. In this way, we can partner to create sustainable, healthy laundry systems around the world. Pretty incredible, right?

You can read more about our global projects on our website.

Meet the team

Financial

The biggest challenge is cost. If all we were doing is opening a standard laundromat, it would still cost more to start up than an average small business. (Some commercial washing machines cost as much as a car!) Because we're doing everything as sustainably as possible, the costs at the outset are even higher. 

However, using solar power, rainwater harvesting, and greywater recycling also means that our utility bills, normally by far the highest overhead costs for a laundry business, will be drastically lowered. 

Also, as a single mother, I can't boast a high net worth or a hefty nest egg. However, what I do have is a clear vision, great team, excellent business plan, and heaps of resourcefulness, commitment, and perseverance. 

We're talking to potential investors to work with us on our next steps after the land purchase, and we already have one confirmed. We feel confident that the environmental and social impacts of our project, as well as the potential for profit and growth, will continue to attract the funding we need as we go along. 

Systems design

Designing what we're calling the "Rainwash System": catching rain off our roof; getting it to the washers; then sending some of the greywater out to the greenhouse, garden, and orchard; and running the rest of it through a purification system to make it safe and clean to reuse in the washers - well, that's a bit of a challenge too! 

Luckily, we have many wonderful resources here in Taos to help us. We're currently applying for a grant to get technical assistance for this from one of the national labs in this state, through the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program. However, even if we don't get that grant, we can still scale down our plans a bit and set up these systems incrementally, as we have the funds. 

We're in it for the long haul!

Thanks for reading all the way through, and we have just one more little favor to ask