http://www.carbonneutral.com/

Reported to mods.

 

Maggie. I'm not yet familiar with this site, but I will take a look. Thanks for the link. Things have changed around here in your absence, and not for the better. It's nice to hear from you.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Feb 4 2007, 12:40 PM) [snapback]385143[/snapback]</div>

I've seen these spikey rubber dryer balls advertised as softening the laundry without chemicals but there's never any explanation as to how they work so I've steered clear. Whatever I use to substitute for Downy, it would have to result in no pilling. They don't say anything about pilling. If anyone has any experience with these dryer balls, please post here.

I'll surf around the rest of the site. I'm interested in green products.

BTW I have a Whirlpool recycling washer. That's right, it sucks the laundry water back for a second loud. It may sound awful, but I researched it before I bought it and Consumer Reports said the second load is just as clean, no negative effects. Except is saves me on water. And if the first load is the hot load the second load can be the warm load without using the water heater. Unfortunately they don't make the machine any more.

This is the sort of thing that makes me a doubter. One whacko product will make any of the legitimate products look whacko too:

magno-fuel

 

My wife bought those dryer balls. Before seeing that link, I didn't know that they are supposed to take place of the fabric softener. When my wife bought them she only said they were supposed to help with wrinkles, lol. I'm doing a load of laundry right now so I am going to try the dryer balls and no fabric softener. We'll see how it goes. I wonder if the laundry will come out with static cling though.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Feb 4 2007, 07:00 PM) [snapback]385348[/snapback]</div>

He'll never be asked to do the laundry again I bet. :lol:

 

:lol:


The laundry turned out good. The clothes came out soft, wrinkle-free, and there is no static cling. Looks like I won't need to buy fabric softener anymore. B)

I give them 2 thumbs up!

 

Hm. Okay. Spikey rubber dryer balls it is. That site is sold out but they can be had in other places.

Apparently the dryerballs for the U.S. are different than the UK because of the differences in our machines.

These are the ones developed for the U.S.

And they're on sale HERE

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 4 2007, 10:00 AM) [snapback]385105[/snapback]</div>

Sorry, my mistake. The subject line was so spam-like I didn't click the link. It's like those emails you get: "Check this out and destroy your computer!" Yea, I gotta click that.

I should have looked at the number of posts.

Tom

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Feb 4 2007, 07:48 AM) [snapback]385090[/snapback]</div>

This is not on-topic for the laundry discussion, but relates to an earlier thread regarding Terrapass. The main business that carbonneutral is in is selling carbon offsets -- that is, they will fund projects to reduce carbon emissions, and if you pay for that, you have offset your own carbon emissions.

The interesting difference here is that these folks, as far as I can tell, specifically avoid doing what Terrapass does, that is, which is to buy renewable energy certificates (or "green tags") and call that their carbon avoidance, based on the tons of carbon stated on the green tags.

Instead, they actually avoid what I believe to be the European version of green tags (renewable obligcation certificates or ROCs), and instead appear to favor direct investment in projects.

So, where I believe that Terrapass' claim to have offset your carbon emissions is false, there is some possibility that this firm actually does offset your carbon emissions.

Separately in that Terrapass thread, the issue of planting forests to offset carbon came up. These folks do that, but they at least admit that a weakness of the approach is that the carbon is sequestered only as long as the forest stands.

Anyway, in terms of their main mission -- offsetting carbon -- it looks like these folks actually do that, while a payment to Terrapass is, in my opinion, best characterized as a small charitable contribution toward clean energy, not as a quantifiable reduction in carbon emissions.

BUT, totally on-topic for laundry, we bought a spin dryer, and so far it works as advertised. Apparently these are common in Europe (one appears in a Monty Python episode), but rare in the US. A spin dryer is basically a centrifuge for your laundry. A typical load of clothes in our household yields about 3 quarts of water, when run through the spin dryer -- from the laundry that was already spun in the washing machine. After you spin the laundry, you put it in the regular dryer, and the spin-dryer indeed cuts drying time significantly. The vendor says the spin dryer cuts drying time in half, and that seems about right. There are also supposedly health benefits for those with skin sensitive to soaps as otherwise that 3 quarts of soapy water would have been dried onto the fabric. Obviously, it uses less energy to hang the laundry, but if you can't, a spin dryer appears to save significant energy based on reduced drying time.

 

How big are these spin dryers? I'll have to look into it. We probably don't have room for such a thing right now in our wee hut, but we're gonna be moving sometime in the next year and I'll keep an eye towards having room for one of these things.

Also, from what I've heard mature forests are carbon neutral. Of course any new forests that are planted would be carbon negative for quite a while.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Feb 6 2007, 11:56 AM) [snapback]386091[/snapback]</div>

The one we got is about the size of a kitchen trash can -- call it a cylinder 16" diameter and 3' tall. A full load from the clothes washer has to be split into three to be run through the spin dryer. I get the feeling this this is the pony model, and that the typical european model is bigger. But it works for us. It only takes a minute or so of spinning to get the water out, but it can make a racket when it runs out-of-balance. We've only had it a few months so I can't vouch for durability. It was $150 with shipping from laundry-alternative.com, which was the only place I could find selling them in the US.
http://www.laundry-alternative.com/spin-dryer.htm
I figure roughly a 3 year payback period.

You are right on the forests -- only a growing forest absorbs carbon. The figures I saw were 90 years for southern pine forest -- after that they are carbon-neutral as long as they continue to stand.

 

That's cool, chogan. Do you know what it draws while in operation? (multiply volts with amps to get watts)