Great article. My mind starts whirring around delivery bots connected to tubes coming out of apartment complexes, much like ones we see now for garbage disposal. Your clothes would need to be separated somehow from those of your neighbors but once you filled up your ‘load’, it would automatically get washed, folded and returned via another bot. You would need to design a way to segregate your clothes from others- perhaps like the little barrier you use at a cash register at the grocery to keep your food separate from others- as it goes through one of those tunnel washers. Of course, you could do it manually like Washio or Rinse for the time being as well and build your own Amazon-like washing operations logistics empire.

I love the comment about doing a wash being meditative. I like to watch the Daily (or Nightly) Show when I fold. I expect most people see it as a chore they would happily dispense with- especially anyone who does not currently have a washer in their home. We have a washer that takes quarters downstairs, which is a major headache: get the quarters from the bank or BART station, walk downstairs and outside using the keys twice on two doors, and then sometimes the machine eats your quarters! And if it eats your quarters you have to walk 1/2 mile with all your laundry and do it at the laundromat, which is not fun at all- closer to 2 hrs of work in this scenario.

If you can win on convenience, you will get anyone to sign up. Washing machines won with housewives initially as a ‘time saving’ device. What people did with that ‘saved time’ is another story (joined the workforce & spent time on Facebook) but that was the hook. The environmental efficiency is a bonus that you sneak in inside- like warriors in a Trojan Horse- that comes along for the ride.

PS for Adam- I stopped washing my jeans. So far so good!