How washing machines can put your family`s health at risk

The pasta stains might have disappeared — but are your freshly laundered clothes really clean? In our desire to be greener, as well as softer on clothes, many of us are lowering the temperature of our washes. The maker of Ariel Gel is encouraging consumers to wash at 15c rather than 40c in order to halve energy costs. But experts are concerned our bid to save the planet — and money — will affect our health.

For while we associate laundry with cleanliness, some estimates say the average washing machine load contains 100 million E.coli at any one time. Interesting, a report by the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene warns that low temperature washing might not be strong enough to kill disease-causing bugs.

Professor Sally Bloomfield, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wants a campaign to educate consumers in laundry hygiene. `We need to launder clothing in a way that renders them not just visually clean, but hygienically clean — the two are not the same,` she says.

Her concerns are backed by a German study on clothes contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, linked to skin and urinary tract infections, as well as pneumonia. Researchers found the only way to eradicate the bacterium was with temperatures of 40c and above combined with a detergent containing bleach.


/Daily Mail/