This week on Earth Beat's "Green gadgets", sorting the white wash from the green wash; Marnie, Anik and Fiona review cleaner ways of doing the laundry.
First up, Anik reviews Ecoballs
Description: Roughly tennis ball-sized balls with holes on the outside and ceramic pellets inside.
Cost: Two-pack costs roughly 19 euros, one ball does 75 washes (works out to roughly 13 eurocents per load). No detergent needed.
Opinion: The laundry "smelled good and clean". And, since you don't have to use detergent, you don't have to use the rinse cycle on your machine.
Next, Marnie takes on Soap nuts
Description: Small, brown "nuts", about the size of a whole nutmeg seed.
Cost: Five euros for 150 washes - roughly 3 eurocents per load of laundry. No detergent needed.
Opinion: The nuts smell pretty bad "like vinegary dates", but the clothes came out smelling great. A beetroot stain didn't come out entirely... but came out surprisingly clean. Anik adds that she uses them and prefers them to washing balls. She notes that they have been used for hundreds of years in India and Nepal and are even used to wash hair in those countries.
And finally, Fiona tried out the Magnet ball
Description: Two green balls, about half the size and weight of a cricket ball, with a big hole in the side. Designed to soften the water and stop scale build-up.
Cost: Rougly 20 euros - can be reused indefinitely (5-year warranty)
Opinion: You use less washing powder, though it's hard to see immediate results (who has ever noticed scale building up inside the machine?!).
Fiona also tested Dryerballs
Description: Roughly tennis ball-sized hard, rubbery balls with spikes on the outside. The balls bounce around with laundry, separating the clothes so they dry faster, using less electricity. They also pound the clothes "gently" to soften and fluff clothes without liquid softener.
Cost: Roughly 13 euros - can be reused indefinitely
Opinion: In the end, the clothes came out dry, though not exactly wrinkle-free. Biggest bonus: Fiona's husband considered them a gadget, so he did the laundry!
Listen to their clean conversation here:
This week on Earth Beat's "Green gadgets", sorting the white wash from the green wash; Marnie, Anik and Fiona review cleaner ways of doing the laundry.
This week on Earth Beat's "Green gadgets", sorting the white wash from the green wash; Marnie, Anik and Fiona review cleaner ways of doing the laundry.
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Sure now we have all these alternatives to laundry detergent but I think we also need to know how do the washing machines cope with these alternatives. I mean, are they safe to use? We don't have washing machines fully adapted to the new gadgets, I should know, I just checked on Whirpool parts. I did find a washing machine that used rubber balls instead of water though.
Thanks Ashleigh, for this wonderful ladies programme. You all have given wonderful tips to conserve energy, and water, and the fabric remains new too. Infact, Marnie, we do use soap nuts known as Reetha here, but we use soap nut powder for washing woollens and hair, it softens both, though saponification is there so have to use plenty of water to remove the soap suds. However, I like your method of using whole soap nuts in a muslin bag. I will try it, thanks!
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