It's a question of scale - there might be one sewer pipe repair per person per... decade, I'd guess? Actually probably way less, but let's stick with per decade.

Whereas there is one load of laundry per person per... I'm guessing per week-ish? And this probably pales in comparison to tires and brake pads.

So laundry is done something like 500x more often. Sure it's great to study everything, but it's also important to keep in mind what is significant and widespread, and what is relatively minor.