UK to give waterless washing machine a spin

A washing machine using as little as a cup of water for each washing cycle could go on sale to environmentally conscious Britons next year.

Xeros, 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 percent of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine.


Graphic from here.

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. 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.

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