Eco Washing Lines

Laundry is a fact of life for everyone so it’s a good idea to get kids involved in the process as early as possible. Sure, they’ll make some mistakes but you’ll be teaching a life skill and getting some help for yourself. Persevere and it will help everyone in your household.

Place laundry baskets or hampers in every bedroom and bathroom. Divided hampers are useful for sorting colors and whites.

Give each family member a mesh bag for socks. The bags can be thrown in the washer and dryer preventing lost socks.

A big part of taking care of someone who is sick is making them feel as comfortable as possible. If they have something contagious, it’s also important to keep everyone else in the household healthy. These tips will help keep everyone feeling their best particullarly in Winter when there are lots of bugs going around.

The best sheets for a sick bed are those that can be washed in hot water and disinfected with chlorine bleach. You will probably need to change the sheets everyday, if not more often. Sometimes just changing the pillowcases will make the sick one feel more comfortable.

For your own protection, place the sheets in a laundry basket or hamper to carry them to the washer. If you carry them in your arms near your face, some germs can remain on your clothing or hands and cause problems.

If you have blood, vomit or medicine stains, treat these first. Sheets should then be washed in the hottest water possible with detergent and chlorine bleach to help kill germs, bacteria and head lice.

Line-drying sheets in the sun and fresh air will also help to sanitize them.

Finding new methods of processing wastewater is very important. Using a combination of wastewater and algae to produce biodiesel is even better, because it’s “doubly green”, as the algae neutralize water pathogens as they feed and eat out carbon dioxide to produce fuel.

The main advantage, the Rochester Institute of Technology researchers say, is that algae are easier to grow than corn and doesn’t consume precious resources such as freshwater or land to grow. On the contrary, those plants grow and do photosynthesis in the most harsh environments, where nobody really wants to grow anything else.

“Algae—as a renewable feedstock—grow a lot quicker than crops of corn or soybeans,” researcher Eric Lannan said in a statement. “We can start a new batch of algae about every seven days. It’s a more continuous source that could offset 50 percent of our total gas use for equipment that uses diesel.”

The scientists isolated and extracted the lipids from Scenedesmus, a single-celled alga which they grew in a treatment plant in Irondequoit, NY.

“Algae will take out all the ammonia [and] 88 percent of the nitrate and 99 percent of the phosphate from the wastewater — all those nutrients you worry about dumping into the receiving water,” Lodge said in a statement. “In three to five days, pathogens are gone. We’ve got data to show that the coliform counts are dramatically reduced below the level that’s allowed to go out into Lake Ontario.”

The first lab tests have been made using only 30 gallons of water. A tank that they used at Environmental Energy Technology used 100 gallons, and the plans are to use as much as 1,000 gallons to produce fats that Northern Biodiesel will process into fully-usable biodiesel.

Whether you have a small garden, or just prefer a lawn free of wet washing, now you can dry your clothes discreetly outside in the sunshine with the innovative new WallFix clothes dryer from Brabantia.This handy wall-mounted dryer will fit even the smallest outdoor area, and folds away into a compact, space-saving unit.

With Brabantia’s WallFix dryer there is no need to carry, set-up or store a washing line, because it is fixed to the wall and always ready for use.

Just unfold the dryer with a simple one-handed movement for a drying length of 25 metres – that’s a full machine load of laundry.

Clothes not only smell fresher when dried outside in the sunshine, it also saves energy and money compared with tumble drying.

Easy to install, each WallFix clothes dryer is supplied with a wall bracket, fixing materials, clear step-by-step instructions and a protective cover to keep the dryer clean when not in use. The unit can also be wall-mounted inside to provide indoor drying space on rainy days in the laundry/utility room or garage.

There are so many solar projects being developed at present which is a good thing. Here is another one that looks interesting:

Israel-based Solaris Synergy and French EDF Group are planning to develop a new system of floating solar panels, called AQUASUN, which has the possibility of being installed on the surface of existing bodies of water.

The panels use silicon cells, which unlike other types, are less expensive but also prone to inefficiency caused by overheating. However,this is not a problem as the water on which they’re floating acts as a cooling system.

Users have the option to add or remove panels in order to tailor the power output to their requirements. A single modular panel is capable of generating around 200 kW of clean energy.

This kind of system will not be installed in ecologically-sensitive areas or in open seas, but rather on reservoirs already in use for agriculture and industrial purposes. The water will not become stagnant because the panels are designed to allow oxygen to permeate through. So far, the companies have released a prototype that has been presented at the 4th International Eilat-Eilot Renewable Energy Conference in Israel. The designers have great plans for the future. They’re planning to install AQUASUN for a nine-month test period on a basin at a hydro-electric facility in southeastern France by the end of September

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