One of the biggest water wasters in a household is the laundry machine. Let’s face it: we throw dirty, smelly clothes into a machine, turn it on, do other chores around the house and an hour later, we have clean, nice-smelling clothes. That takes up a lot of water that we prefer not to think about. Sanyo’s Aqua washing machine aims to do all those functions with the added bonus of using much less water.

Going beyond the difficult-to-accept notion of using plastic chips to beat the clothes clean, The Aqua Loop water-saving technology uses 96% less water than an equivalent Sanyo washer from just a decade ago, while still working like a washing machine. The three-in-one machine not only washes but also dries clothes and recycles water. Manager Koji Nobuchi says the new Sanyo machines were designed to recognize the global wastewater management problem. The machine doesn’t need water to sterilize or deodorize clothes and recycles bath water, using a filtration system.

The drum-style machines converts air to ozone to eliminate bacteria and odor, a process previously used only in commercial washing machines like those in hospitals with ozone-generating machines. But Sanyo is now packaging the technology for household use. Water is purified using a recycling process. The ozone washes away bacteria, which can lead to smells, and dirt.

“By making a washing machine that can reuse bathwater and recycle it in Japan, customers not only save on their water bills, but they save water than needs to be used for drinking,” says Sanyo spokesman Aaron Fowles in an article published in Digital World Tokyo last month. “[T]hat type of water makes up less than one per cent of the Earth’s water supply.”

The machine is only available now in Japan and Taiwan, but the company hopes to eventually enter the U.S. and European market. The only washer we’ve heard of that sounds as interesting is one that doesn’t use detergent. Here’s a demonstration of how Sanyo’s water-saver works.

Via GoodCleanTech, TechJapan