Evalunacy

Guest post from fellow boater,  Allayne Roper on trying out a more environmentally friendly way of washing clothes.

If someone had asked either me or my husband a few months ago if we would be washing our laundry with nuts we would have said you must be joking – but here we are doing just that.

Since my husband and I moved onto our wide-beam canal boat nearly a year ago, we have become much greener in what we use and the effect it has on the environment.  This has been aided by our neighbours who are also quite green themselves.

We are always ones for trying new products and saw  soapnuts at the “True Food Community Co-operative“, an organic shop in Emmer Green.  Soapnuts are an ecologically friendly washing product – regarded by many  as the environmental way of washing your clothes.  We are also very conscious of getting value for money if we can: comparing the 500g bag of soapnuts to the local superstore branded product, be it either wash tablets or liquid tabs, seemed to us to be better value for money in the amount of washes claimed, so we thought we would give it a try. What harm could it do?

The soapnuts we bought come in a cotton bag with a tie string and a small, biodegradable liner pouch to put your shells in.  Soapnuts grow on the foot hills in India, and to me look like cracked conker shells.  The shells contain saponin, which is a natural detergent when it comes into contact with water.  The nuts also allow you to scent your wash by adding a few drops of your favourite essential oils – we added rose for our first wash the greener way.

We added half a dozen shells to the liner pouch, tied it up and placed it in the machine, and with trepidation set the machine as usual.  We both wondered how it would work, whether it would foam up like some detergents do  - but no, it didn’t seem to.   The machine ran its cycle, and we opened the door like a child opening their first Christmas present. What were we to behold?  What came out was a clean washload, feeling softer than usual, with a mild hint of clean clothes that’s hard to describe (unless you try them yourself).

If you have tougher stains to remove, they recommend a stain removing salt which we will try when we’ve got the tougher stains which we all have at times.

Soapnuts are something we definitely will continue to use – with each load, you are testing the fabrics and how well they react to this new form of detergent.

Be you someone who likes to save the environment or not, I would say give them a try.  So far we have been pleased with the results. I am sure you will be too.

Our attempts at eco-logs

Our latest experiments in going green have not gone so well.

I decided to buy some ‘eco brick’ makers: making fuel bricks out of used paper.

The process is: soak the paper, squish it into a brick shape in the brick maker, and leave to dry.

Stages one and two are great. Stage three is a problem on a boat where we:

(a) don’t have  an airing cupboard

(b) don’t have spare space

(c) have a captain who puts them outside to dry in the rain!

Two weeks after our first bricks were made they still haven’t dried out, despite being placed in our top oven whilst the bottom one was running, at in the sun when it peaked out ferom behind the clouds, sat in the warm kitchen and generallty shifted to warm dry places. Apart from the small ‘sitting on the roof’ incident.

I also have a plate full of mouldy tea bags – the other eco burner was supposed to burn dried out tea bags, dried leaves etc, squished into a solid tube (pictures to follow)

The used tea bags went mouldy before they dried out.It’s becoming clear that drying out and being on a boat don’t go well together – including for humans.

'Fuel brick'-making gadget