14 DAY TRIAL // If you're passionate about all things "green" - and you very well should be - then you should also know that excessive water consumption is one of the major sources of concern all over the world and one of the aspects of our everyday lives that we struggle to get under control. We've all grown used to the comfort of having a washing machine in the house and using it upwards of four times a week. As a result, we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that a country such as the UK uses on average 455 million liters of water a day (which would be enough to fill 145 Olympic sized swimming pools) for clothing washing.
Do not worry, though - human ingenuity has gotten our race out of stickier dilemmas so far and already researchers are coming up with spectacular ideas to help us cut back on our daily water consumption. The latest such idea has produced a unique device that most of us will probably want for our homes as soon as it's on the market - a revolutionary washing machine that could help us save billions of liters of water each year and which only needs a cup of water to carry out a full washing cycle. The technology uses not water, but reusable plastic chips to absorb and remove dirt from clothes, and has been created by researchers at UK's Leeds University.
The plastic chip washing technology, presently called "Xeros", uses less than 2% of the water - and energy - used by a conventional washing machine. With each load of clothes, a cup of water and detergent, along with about 20 kilos of chips (each about half a centimeter in size) are fed to the machine, which heats the water to help dissolve the dirt, which is subsequently absorbed by the chips. Once every wash is completed, the chips are to be removed from the machine, but they can be reused up to 100 times - which means that we'd only have to add new chips to the machine about two or three times a year. When completed, this new technology will most likely revolutionize the cleaning industry - and our homes - forever, so be sure to keep an eye out for when it will be available to the public.