White goods and the environment

Washing machines are heavy. This is mostly due to concrete blocks inside. But if the drum wasn’t weighted down it would bang violently from side to side and try to burst up through the lid during spin. Modern washing machines usually have two drum weights inside. One on top of the drum, and one either

Since writing this article the highest energy ratings have moved from A+ to A++ and then A+++. But I don’t expect this to affect the principle of the points made here. In fact I would expect the difference between an A++ and A+++ to be even less than the differences described in the article for

This subject is relevant to white goods because it’s now used as a well established marketing tool employed by all manufacturers and it shapes how many of our household appliances are designed and marketed. Although I haven’t written a direct article on this topic before I’ve long since been a sceptic about man-made climate change

For some reason the recycling costs imposed by the government (designed to force manufacturers to reduce the amount of waste they create) penalises all the appliance manufacturers that make high quality appliances the most. This seems contrary to the ethos of the WEEE directive.