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Laundry: What's the minimum energy and resource footprint needed to clean clothes used daily for sport/cycling?

• Suppose that each day one is exercising (or biking to work), and that because of perspiration (or occasional mud/rain) the clothes need cleaning each day.  Assume that because the clothes will get dirty anyway that it's not essential that they are perfectly cleaned each day - one does not need to present oneself quite as well while biking compared to the rest of the day.  Finally, assume that if the clothes are washed somehow that there is enough sun to dry the clothes each day (but feel free to suggest other methods). The aim is to reduce the amount of water used, the amount of energy used through using a standard washer/dryer, the amount of money used in paying for those, the amount of time used in maintaining this each day.  What about soaking the clothes in a small amount of water and laundry soap every couple days?  This could save on the use of a washer/dryer.  Given that plan, where might the water be sourced from?  Rainwater?  Excess water from a shower?  Might it be possible to skip an extended "rinse" cycle and basically keep the clothes full of a little soap if they're to be used exclusively for the daily sport/cycling?  If so, what clothes would be good for that?  What kind of soap would work best to ensure that the clothes stay at a basic sanitary level?  Would thinner clothes be more efficient?  What about bleach?  If the clothes are chosen to be white clothes, would this make it easier to always use a little bleach? Finally, suppose that the sports clothes used for daily cycling have been used on a given day, but that it's not possible to do a full cycle with water.  Is there a way to put some kind of neutral dry powder on the clothes to keep them as sanitary as possible or to reduce the chance of mold?  What about drying them without washing them on that day (to wash the next day)?  Could some kind of moisture absorbent help?

• Answer:

  The obvious answer here would be to have more than one pair of cycling clothes so they don’t have to be washed too frequently.But to go back to your original underlying question of energy footprints for laundry, roughly 94% of the energy used to wash laundry is due to the water temperature. This switch from hot water to cold water would also http://www.vaporfresh.com/blog/what-makes-laundry-detergent-green/. Use cold-water and eliminate that energy usage. They key here is to use a detergent that’s meant for gym clothes AND cold water (http://www.vaporfresh.com/vapor-fresh-sports-laundry-detergent/).