For more than 60 years, there has been little change in the world of commercial laundry. While laundry machines have seen some technical improvements and relatively minor efficiency increases, their reliance upon the ages-old tactic of using copious amounts of hot water and detergent to get linens and other fabrics clean has constrained the amount of innovation that was possible.

As it stands now, 3-4 gallons of water are consumed for every pound of laundry washed, not to mention the electric and gas needed to get that water hot enough to provide a satisfactory clean. For commercial laundry businesses and hospitalities with in-house laundry services alike, this can translate into incredibly high utility costs.

But, what if we were to replace water as the primary cleaning agent? What would happen if we could change the fundamental principles behind getting laundry clean? How would the commercial laundry world change if that were the case?

Actually, you don't have to imagine how the commercial laundry world would change. Why? Because, for the first time in 60 years, there's a completely new way to process laundry: polymer bead cleaning. It's here to stay, and it's changing the commercial laundry world in several ways:

#1: Reduced Utility Consumption

Polymer bead cleaning replaces water with millions of tiny, reusable stain-absorbing polymer beads. As a result, the Xeros machine cuts overall water use by up to 80 percent! Moreover, the water that the machine does use to carry the beads through the wash cycle can be run cold, saving on heating costs.

On top of the improvements in water and electric utility consumption, the Xeros machine can get fabrics cleaner than a traditional machine with half the chemical. This helps improve the profit margin of the industry through reduced operating costs.

#2: Making the Industry Greener

Because of the reduction in water, electric, and chemical use, a polymer bead-based laundry machine also offers a serious reduction in the carbon footprint of the commercial laundry industry when compared to traditional laundry machines.

Less water and chemical consumption means producing less effluent, which in turn reduces the amount of chemical that makes its way into runoff.

On top of that, when the polymer beads finally do need to be replaced (which only happens after hundreds of washes), the old beads are 100% recyclable for use in the automotive industry as material for plastic parts.

Combine all of the ways that polymer beads reduce carbon footprint, and you have a much more environmentally-friendly laundry industry.

#3: Reducing Labor Spent on Each Load

With a traditional laundry machine, the combination of hot water, strong chemicals, and rough agitation meant that dyes in fabrics would often bleed. Because of this, you couldn't wash fabrics with heavy dyes in the same wash cycle as lighter-colored fabrics. In turn, this meant that laundry workers would have to carefully sort out each and every laundry load, or else risk ruining a customer's fabrics.

However, with a polymer bead washing system, laundry loads are done at lower temperatures with less detergent. This results in less color bleed than a traditional laundry process to begin with. On top of that, the polymer beads themselves are specially formulated to soak up excess dye and trap it. As a result, even when dye does bleed from a fabric, it doesn't get the chance to transfer to a new piece of cloth, because the beads are there to soak up the dye as soon as it attempts to leave the fabric.

This means that with a polymer bead washing system, commercial laundry operators will be able to spend less time on sorting fabrics, giving them more time to work on the next load or other operations.

#4: Making Laundry More Fabric-Friendly

Because of the way that traditional laundry machines have to rely on high-temperature water and heavy chemical use in conjunction with rough mechanical agitation to strip stains from fabrics, they often placed a lot of excess stress on fabrics. This caused fabrics to wear thin more quickly, as well as lose their vibrant coloration to dye bleed during the wash cycle.

With lower-temperature water, dye does not bleed as much, keeping colors looking vibrant for longer. Not only that, the millions of polymer beads used in the wash cycle support the weight of the fabrics in the wash better than water, providing a much gentler tumbling action than a traditional washing cycle. This serves to keep fabrics from wearing through as quickly.

The combination of lower water temps and gentler tumbling action allow a Xeros bead-based polymer cleaning machine to wash fabrics that a traditional machine couldn't handle. As a result, polymer bead washing allows commercial laundry operators to wash certain delicate fabrics that would not have survived a traditional laundry process.

In short, polymer bead washing is making the commercial laundry industry greener, more resource efficient, labor-efficient, and able to process a greater range of laundry types with a single machine.

Join the future of commercial laundry today!

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