an investigation of domestic laundry in europe - habits ... - SIFO

Environmental protection, consumer interests and safety 105formance. For the Netherlands, both the compact and the more traditional typeof detergents are temperature dependent.Consumers may or may not accept a reduction in wash performance, and ifwashing machines and detergents are not improved enough to counterbalancethis effect, we might find that common European laundering practices movetowards higher wash temperatures again. From the findings reported in chapter2, we have seen that consumers wash their clothes quite often. Eventhough this is not a good alternative for the environment, this could be lookedupon as a way of solving the problem of a lower wash performance. It shouldbe mentioned here that the quality of the textiles to be washed and the carelabelling of these are of great importance to how consumers deal with theirlaundry.The energy label on detergents specifies the cleaning efficacy, and the ECOlabelrequires a minimum of cleaning power. The latter shows that measuresare taken to link water temperature to the cleaning efficiency of detergents.What is to be preferred, high temperatures or more rinsing? From the resultsshown in chapter 4, both approaches can improve the level of hygiene. Butboth have an adverse effect in terms of the environmental impact of laundering.Higher wash temperatures require more energy, which means greater carbondioxide emissions. But more rinses require more tap water. On the basisof the present insights into the impact of energy consumption and water use,an increase in water consumption would be chosen. Water is not scarce inEurope, and the production of water requires very low amounts of energy andchemicals.5.1.3 DetergentsThe use of detergents is linked to the depletion of resources, since the productionof these chemicals requires natural resources, which are non-recoverableraw materials. It is also linked to pollution of the water systems, as the useddetergents are drained with the wastewater. National and European legislation,such as the ban on phosphate and non-biodegradable surfactants, hassteered industry into a more sustainable direction. In an attempt to reduce theenvironmental impacts, detergents have been made more effective and havebeen concentrated, both measures leading to lower detergent consumption. Inthe Netherlands, for instance, the dosage for a normal washing programme forwhites has gone down from ± 170 grams per cycle in 1980 to ± 65 grams in2000 [25]. This reduction means lower detergent concentrations in the suds,