I saw this bit this morning on Gizmodo: there are some British inventors who have designed a new washing machine that only uses one cup of water (with detergent). According to the original article in the Daily Mail, that’s less than 2% of what conventional washers use. Hooray for water conservation!

The machine, currently dubbed the Xeros, also uses a ton (well, 44lbs) of little plastic chips during the wash; they say the heated water helps remove dirt, and the little plastic chips absorb them. The chips are filtered out at the end and can be used up to 100 times.

At first the “heated” thing concerned me, but the energy to heat one cup of water is probably pretty insignificant. However, what still bothers me is … plastic chips? So even though they’re reusable (up to six months, says the DM), I can’t help but think about the resources used to make (and make and make and make) those plastic chips. The article does not mention anything about how those chips are produced — are they at least recycled plastic? Why not just use Soap Nuts? (Though I suppose one cup of water won’t be enough for the Soap Nuts to work.)

Categories: gear, technology
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