Eco balls

Mar 14, 2009 15 Replies

What the devil are "eco balls"?


Well, I know what they are - they are plastic balls with other balls inside them, that I saw on sale in Aldi, and which are claimed to be a 'natural' - funny, I never encountered such things in nature before - alternative to washing powder. What I'd like to know is, how are they supposed to work?



Aldi were also selling "Wash 'n' Save Balls", an equally baffling proposition.


Daniele


"D.M. Procida" wrote in message news:1iwkbo2.1vcynt710c10qqN% snipped-for-privacy@apple-juice.co.uk...

Yet another (polite!) way to sell eco-bollox to the general public, if you ask me ... :-) Seriously though, can the water circulate inside them ? Might be some attempt at 'simulating' the action of washing clothes in a river or something, where stones might be used to pound the dirt out ?

Arfa

The bloke who invented the drier balls was interviewed on radio, and AFAICR pretty much said he just did it to make some money from the gullable (probably in slightly different words). They're still for sale though.

That'll be good for cashmere pullovers...

Daniele

In message , D.M. Procida wrote

The solid plastic balls are the equivalent hitting your washing on rocks

- but for a washing machine in a detergent rich environment. These have be of some benefit in the cleaning process but possibly at the expense of a shorter life span for the clothing and the washing machine drum.

The ones that claim to replace washing power are the equivalent of hitting your washing on rocks using plain tap water. They work just as well as using your washing machine without any detergent (and without balls). A cycle in a washing with the eco ball(ox) in plain water will get most things superficially clean but will leave all the body fats etc. still on the clothes. You will then have to boil wash every third time :)

The washing machine ones are a good way to make your machine stink, nothing eco about that. Gappy balls in a drier marginally increase airflow, so may indeed save you 2 seconds of drying time.

NT

Same way as their natural alternative. See

formatting link
the same as chucking a handful of rocks in but not quite as noisy.

They're for people who don't understand that powder put in the dispenser ends up dissolved in the water in exactly the same way.

I think that might explain the Wash 'n' Save Balls":

'

But not the eco-balls:

The eco-balls are apparently good for 150 washes, so they obviously contain something that gets used up.

Daniele

Not following this thread very closely, but maybe something like this?

Not so much used up as filled up.

And very definitely 'natural' (or at least, originally so, even if there are manufactured versions now).

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember snipped-for-privacy@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) saying something like:

Same as bashing the clothes against rocks down by the riverbank. A greenie's dream, once they have us all wearing homespun and whittling our own furniture.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember snipped-for-privacy@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) saying something like:

You can buy a can of serpens oleum locally, surely?

It will be wholewheat dungarees I reckon.

OR the snake-oil vendors want to keep you coming back to buy more.

Good will from the sap who shelled out hard-earned for them, probably ... ;-)

Arfa

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required