Comments on: Green Laundry Detergents

By: msmuddy

msmuddy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:37:48 +0000

My fave detergent is no detergent at all – its the BioWashball. It leave no residue & it costs $34 for a years worth of laundry. Or you can soak clothes & ball in a tub with water before beating….

Seriously, I have been using this ball for almost a month and I am going to replace all detergents!

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:14:55 +0000

Millions of people still do, and probably have better lives for it, in some ways ;-)

By: phireboy

phireboy — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:12:42 +0000

hey we could go back to beating our clothes on a rock by the side of a river!

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:02:22 +0000

Thanks for the clarification Corey, I remember my grandmother having a spin dryer, but it was small, noisy machine built circa 1970 and I doubt it was any more efficient for her than hand-wringing clothes. I presume they technology has moved on a lot since. They are not a white goods item I’ve noticed for sale in the UK though…got any links to outlets (pardon the pun)?

By: Corey Tournet

Corey Tournet — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:00:38 +0000

Via email:

It is much better than a tumble dryer in terms of energy use- it uses about 1/100th of the electricity. Yes it is a manufactured product, but as it is quite a bit smaller than a tumble dryer, the manufacturing and shipping impact is much less as well. It only uses 300 watts, whereas most tumble dryers use close to 5000 and run for close to an hour. Any water that comes out could be recycled.

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 09:03:08 +0000

Interesting thought Corey. Of course, isn’t there a payoff in terms of the energy and materials required to manufacturer the additional device and to run it at high-speed spin? What about recycling the grey water? We can easily utilise the water from our condenser dryer to top up the garden water butts.

By: Corey Tournet

Corey Tournet — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 06:27:06 +0000

Higher spin speeds are an extremely simple, effective solution on the drying side. Front loaders spin at a much faster speed, dramatically reducing drying times in a dryer. For those who can’t or don’t want to shell out that much money, spin dryers are an inexpensive solution and extract even more water and detergent from the clothes than a top of the line front loader. Even if you still use a dryer, you can cut drying times dramatically with a front loader and even more with a spin dryer. As conventional dryers use enormous amounts of energy (around 5000 watts and run for close to an hour) this an excellent way to conserve energy. On top of this your clothes will last longer the less you run them in a tumble dryer.

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:37:28 +0000

That’s an interesting point Chandra. Add this to that the fact that some people use these so-called concentrated products just as liberally as they do the non-concentrated version and so waste more product and resources to boot.

By: Chandra Watkins

Chandra Watkins — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:00:58 +0000

Wal-Mart recently announced it will only sell concentrated liquid laundry detergents in the U.S. come April 2008. (The fact that they will gain more shelf space to sell higher-margin items has not been noted in most of the articles I’ve read about the announcement.)