UK to give waterless washing machine a spin

UK to give waterless washing machine a spin
9 Jun 2008, 1526 hrs IST,REUTERS

Xeros Ltd, which has been spun out of the University of Leeds to commercialise the technology, said on Monday the new machines would use less than 2 per cent of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.

Plastic chips are used to remove dirt and stains from clothes, leaving them dry and reducing energy consumption as there is no need to use a dryer after the washing cycle, Xeros said in a statement.

The firm, which recently secured investment of almost 500,000 pounds ($984,400) from IP Group Plc, said that the price of the new machines was "not expected to be dramatically different from (conventional) washing machines."

Washing machine usage has risen by 23 per cent in the past 15 years. The average UK household uses almost 21 litres of water daily on clothes washing, 13 per cent of daily household water consumption, according to Waterwise, a non-government organisation focused on decreasing water wastage in Britain.

A typical washing machine uses about 35 kilograms of water for every kilogram of clothes, in addition to the power needed to heat the water and dry the clothes

There are more than two million washing machines sold in Britain annually, with a value of about 1 billion pounds, Xeros said.