
Nearly Waterless Washing Machine to Debut in 2009 - prakash
http://www.physorg.com/news136555635.html
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mattmaroon
Most people in countries that can afford new washing machines don't worry too
much about water. And I don't see how replacing water with plastic could
possibly be good for the environment.

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froo
_Most people in countries that can afford new washing machines don't worry too
much about water._

... except if you live in a country that is known to suffer from severe long-
lasting droughts as a result of climate change....like us here in Australia.

We're more than able to afford new washing machines - in fact, our government
subsidises us (in the form of cashbacks) for getting more efficient machines.
The problem is the lack of rainfall combined with increases in population and
water requirements as a result.

In fact, we're so water conscious now that there is legislation in place, in
the form of water restrictions, to help limit unnecessary water usage.

EDIT - just thought I'd break down some numbers to show why this is a good
thing for us.

Household water usage in Australia is just over 11% of the total water usage,
the second highest use in Australia behind Agriculture.

I'm not sure on our specific percentages of washing usage to normal usage, but
if we assume that the 13% figure is fairly consistent with the UK (given
relatively similar cultural backgrounds) then our washing machines account for
about 1.4% of all total water usage in Australia.

Being able to cut this down significantly is good news, when you consider
water usage (for us anyway) is measured in gigalitres (potentially saving up
to 268 GL a year) - thats a whole heap of h2o

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river_styx
This explains how the plastic chips remove dirt, but what about stains and
smells?

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sh1mmer
Washing machine generally work on a couple of principles,

* beating wet fibres to remove unwanted particle mater (stains, dirt, etc) * centrifugal force to extract water

It looks like by adding the plastic chips the surface area and frequency at
which the laundry is beaten is increased. This allows for the reduction in
water.

Depending what kind of "plastic" is used it may be something biodegradable.

The stains and smell associated with dirty laundry is because of the foreign
contaminants in the cloth. If those are removed and absorbed by the plastic
particle then the clothes won't smell any more.

Personally I wonder how many plastic particle would 'escape' each wash though.
That could be a bit of a pain. But this seems like a great improvement to
washing machine technology.

