Fatma Al Arbawi, Amy Zhou, Julia Duarte, Lauren Pearson
Every few days, I carry the buckets of clothes to the river to scrub them clean. It’s exhausting and time-consuming. I used to dream of attending school or starting my own fabric business, but there’s never any time. — Sofía, 25
Hand-washing clothes, traditionally performed by women in Guatemala, is much more time-consuming than one imagines — costing more than 40 hours per week.
<aside> 📌 The introduction of hands-free, low-cost laundry machines is a step towards a greener future. It aims to tackle two critical issues in rural Guatemala: wage inequities and environmental degradation due to detergent toxicity.
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However, due to the cultural norm associated with hand-washing clothes, the lack of access to stable electricity (53%), and the high costs of alternative machinery, electric laundry machines (with most families earning $419 per month) and safe detergents are unattainable luxuries for most families.
The excess time spent limits women’s opportunities for education and economic advancement. Furthermore, the affordable Foca detergents used by these agriculture-reliant communities can increase the acidity of water, thereby damaging the health of crops and residents.
<aside> 📌 By providing a sustainable and affordable laundry solution, we envision a future where cultural traditions don’t require 40 hours of household labour tasks and where our environment is healthier and more sustainable.
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→ Revitalizing Education Equality: With 45.8% of women in Guatemala based in rural villages, wide implementation of the solution would send 4 million girls back to school.
→ Sustainable environmental practices: The activated carbon filtration system removes 60 to 80 chemicals from water and reduces an additional 30.
→ Progressive economic empowerment: Replaced once every 18-24 months, each filter costing $40 USD (for complete distribution of both the washing machine & entire filtration system), with resulting revenue costs which will be attained annually from ~10k villages.
The filter is a drawer compartment that slides easily in and out of the washing machine’s body to allow the accessible replacement of activated carbon.
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