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A greenwash you can believe in

Ursula Sautter | Jan/Feb 2009 issue

The humble washing machine. This essential domestic appliance keeps our clothes clean, saving us untold time and trouble. Yet it guzzles precious drinking water, which is becoming increasingly scarce. In the U.K. alone, some 455 billion liters (12 million gallons) of water go down the drain each day thanks to washing machines. Not for much longer, if Stephen Burkinshaw and his team at Leeds University in England have anything to do with it. They’ve developed a washing machine that only needs 23 milliliters (a cup) of water per load—about 2 percent of the usual dose.

The technology relies on tiny pellets made from recycled plastic. The half-centimeter-wide beads, stored in a cartridge at the back of the machine and released once the wash cycle begins, absorb dirt and stains removed from textiles by laundry soap. At the end of the cycle, a grill opens at the bottom of the drum, from which the chips can be removed for reuse. A 20-kilogram (44-pound) batch will do a year’s laundry. Since the process also leaves clothes practically dry at the end, electricity and water consumption go down and a dryer becomes redundant.

According to Bill Westwater, CEO of Xeros, a firm spun off from the university to develop the product, it has yet another advantage. “You can wash garments that would usually need to be dry cleaned as well as clothes designed for wet washing,” he says. The machines will be launched in the U.K. this year at prices comparable to those of traditional models. It’s the “ideal green proposition, a process that delivers an unequivocal benefit with no trade-off on cleaning performance,” says Burkinshaw. “And it saves on the costs of electricity and water, so there’s less damage to your wallet as well as your planet.”

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