So let me get this straight...

We take a ultra efficient washer which uses very little water, power and soap to get the job done like the current batch of GE front loaders.

But instead of that we use 20 kilograms of plastic chips for each load??

Then after 100 washes we dispose of 20 kilograms of plastic chips?

I'm not really seeing this as a step up.

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20 kg is 40 pounds of plastic that needs to be disposed of every 100 washes.

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Even the Independent isn't that daft. Maybe we should ask them where the plastic comes from.

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What flavors do the chips come in?

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Considering the ocean already holds a swirling mass of plastic bigger than the state of Texas.

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I'm also skeptical about home applications due to the amount of plastic used. After reading up a bit on their website (http://www.xerosltd.com/, it looks to me like this technology will be most useful in the textiles industry. Huge amounts of water are used for dying and fibre processing.

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What's next, coal-powered SUV's?

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to the company Xeros asking about the use of plastics. Will post the reply here when received.

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The brits are a bit daft.

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They're trying to remind us that every better idea comes with trade-offs. Bit of a stretch, I admit.

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OK, so we save water. That's great. Can the 40 pounds of plastic chips be used for something else after 6 months? As much as we need to save water, we don't need more plastic leaching into the ground, the water systems, and our bodies.

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40 lbs of plastic is a lot. Plastic is also a recyclable material, something lost on "awareness raisers" of all many stripes.

Suggest you armchair Edison's come up with a few bright ideas of your own before you raise bloody hell about the efforts genuinely creative, industrious people.

More directly to the point, we as a nation tend to piss and moan quite a lot actually about the rising cost of our relatively cheap gas, which--in a pinch--we could survive without. Humans did it very successfully for the better part of possibly 200,000 years.

Ever try surviving without fresh water?

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Almost 50 pounds of plastic chips - and that at a time when the oceans are choked with plastic chips from our garbage.

And doesn't it take a lot of water - and petroleum - to make and recycle plastic? What about the fumes?

This "solution" is worse than the problem. It only downloads the environmental burden, as with electric cars.

Go to youtube.com and watch the series, "The Story of Stuff".

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..... much of that food stuff is wastefully grown to feed cattle, pigs, and lambs. Those animals also need to drink water. Lots of it. And the slaughter process also demands an abundant water supply. Another waste of good water is the proposed use of rushing fresh water to transport coal: coal slurry. What stupid idea will they think of next.

A washing machine that uses a cup of water? Just a drop in the bucket, as they say.

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Water is a renewable resource. Plastic isn't unless it's biodegradable such as the hemp type which just so happens to also be more durable and requires no petroleum to manufacture than corn-based plastic. This would make Britain far more likely to join the US in another war for oil and right now, I seriously doubt Britain can afford it.

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If the plastic chips could be recycled, which is entirely possible given that they are uniform, predictable and will be used in large quantities, this is a great idea for people living in low-water environments.

I live in a house to which every drop of water used must be trucked right now. It's expensive and it uses a lot of fuel.

Paying to UPS 40 pounds of plastic off to be re-conditioned every 6 months could very well be a good solution for me and for a lot of people in the arid West.

Or the stores which sell these could set up collection stations for the spent chips, from which they could be trucked in bulk to recycling plants, melted, cleaned and re-sold.

Not everyone is living in environments where all the problems involved in getting your water to you are dealt with by others, folks.

Have a brain.

Jan VanDenBerg

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How did you come to live in a house that has no water? Did your well go dry? Curious.

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I contacted Xeros, Ltd., and have received an answer from their representative, Robe Rule. It follows:

"These are reasonable observations

We would respond as follows:

The plastic chips will last at least 100 times – it could be longer
We are evaluating alternative materials from renewable sources, in keeping with the environmental goals of our company
We have some further work to do to assess the re-use of the chips in other applications and potential impact on recyclability – again, we would hope that the chips can be recycled or re-used. We would hope and aim that the environmental burden from the Xeros process will be lower than current cleaning processes (either washing or dry-cleaning).


Hope this helps

Rob Rule

On behalf of Xeros Ltd"

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It's manual, you turn a crank handle and it operates on a vacuum principle which sucks the dirt out.
it is totally water efficient (uses about 5 gallons for a line full of clothes) and does the job in the space of about 4 minutes of cranking.
These items are out there if you look. and buy them before you're forced to.
Prepare for lean times ahead...

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This does look promising -- providing one can recycle the chips, yet even then, the water and energy savings alone are outstanding.

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All the posters above need another toke......No prototype, no product, no citations of the scientific literature..................I think you all should take your life savings and invest in this miracle.

Don't bogart that joint............

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can you say Deforestation?
maybe overpopulation?

time to plant a tree and save the environment... not in the US...
but in Indonesia, New Guinea, Brazil and Central Africa... etc etc!

so much deforestation... so little time... LEFT!
make difference... adopt a tree...

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I know that jewelry can be cleaned by a sonic device: sound waves vibrating all grime, dirt and dust off the gems and metal.

So I always thought some day we'd have washing machines using sound waves instead of H2O waves. Just don't get stuck in the lint trap!

But plastic chips? Perhaps all that plastic in our oceans will turn out to clean up the environment. The earth will be one big washing machine!

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http://www.laundry-alternative.com/washing.html

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