The report is incomplete. Anybody environmentally concerned would ask about the characteristics of the plastic beads and THEIR disposal...

ºOtherwise, it so far sounds very encouraging. Thanks for the article.

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The beads can be used 100 times and then what happens to them? do they just go "away"? It's so frustrating that so many "solutions" aren't much better (or are maybe worse) than the thing they replace. Compact fluorescent bulbs come to mind, less energy, more mercury.

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I'm in California. The world is past peak water, and we're looking at massive droughts. While worrying about what will happen to the plastic beads is important, it's more important to consider how we'll manage water in a continuous shortfall.

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What happens to the used beads? Are they recyclable? 100 uses is only 3-4 months in this household.

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What residue wiil be left on the clothes? I don't like the sound of this 'new and improved way' to do laundry. Anna

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Xeros claims that the nylon beads are recyclable once they are saturated, but the company has not announced any plans to offer recycling. Typically in the U.S., nylon can be recycled as a scrap plastic but is not part of curbside recycling programs.

A couple of thoughts:

-10 per cent of the water of conventional machines use is more than 1 cup (500ml).

-Although, if true, the statement would be technically correct. 1 cup would certainly be less than 10 percent of what a conventional washer uses. But it is probably more like less than 1 percent though.

- I have a water efficient machine that uses only the amount necessary for the load, but I can't think of any machines that use less than 2/3 of a gallon of water.

-According to Waterwise, a typical washing machine uses about 35 liters (about 9.3 gallons) of water for every 1kg (2.2 lbs) of clothes (plus large amounts of energy to heat the water and dry the clothes afterwords). Nationwide, this adds up to an estimated 455 million liters of water every day - enough to fill 145 Olympic swimming pools. So this could be a huge water and energy savings.


-My research shows the machine works by using thousands of plastic chips that are each about half a centimeter in size, to absorb and remove the dirt. Around 44lb (20kilos) of the chips are added to each load, along with a cup of water and detergent. 44 pounds! That is a lot of damn beads! Can you imagine if they spill or get loose in the environment? You could have the second law of thermodynamics going crazy to the max!

--Those beads will get inside socks, pant pockets and “whatnot.” After washing do you get to spend half an hour looking for all the stray beads? I don't want plastic beads in my pockets and socks and hanging out in the slit in my boxer briefs :-)

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In the meantime, ditch that pre-historic top loading washer and buy a front-loader. It uses about 1/3 the amount of water and only 2 tablespoons of soap (powder) per load.

Before we bought ours we would go through several boxes of laundry soap per year. After we got the front-loader the box that we had opened already lasted more than six months!

Oh, and the top loader was shredding our clothes, too. The front-loader is very gentle on clothing.

No one should ever buy a top-loader ever again!

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;)

#@!

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Now, if someone can only come up with a car that needs only one cup of gasoline.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?
www.FreedomTracks.com

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I am not impressed. The thing is, the Japanese have had this invention:

Business Unusual : No Soap?

for over ten years.
Using sound, this washing machine, can lift stains, etc from clothes WITHOUT detergent!

Then the water can be recycled and reused. BUT, the detergent manufacturers have suppressed this invention. WHY? Because of the BILLIONS of profits they will lose.

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