True confessions: Laundry day

I have a confession to make: I’m no longer separating the laundry. Sure, I try to keep the whites together, but if I have a nearly full load of jeans, baby clothes and dress socks ready to be washed, I will throw in a few bath towels instead of waiting until they start piling up, too. This has resulted in a slightly dingy tint to some of the towels hanging in our bathroom, but I can always bleach them later, right? So far this has only caused problems when mixing never-washed dark items with whites, which I now avoid at all costs. But otherwise, I can deal with whites that are never as bright as those on detergent commercials, even if I’m using a detergent labeled “color-safe bleach” or “bleach alternative,” whatever that means, or some other kind of laundry product marketed at the busy mom.

Am I sacrificing my clothing in the name of efficiency (and environmentalism) or is the whole idea of separating laundry a myth propagated by the consumer goods industry to cause us to do more laundry and therefore buy more detergent?