Comment by david-given | Hacker News Reader

Comment by david-given | Hacker News Reader

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Hmm.

A washing machine consumes about 100Wh == 360kJ for a load (ref: http://www.rpc.com.au/information/faq/power-consumption/wash...).

The Emma Mearsk, one of the largest container ships around, uses 13 tonnes of fuel an hour to transport 18000 containers, over a distance of (say) 20000 kilometres, which is 1kg of fuel to transport one container 45km (according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport...), or 450kg for the whole distance.

A 7.5kg washing machine load occupies about 0.00025 of a container, so the fuel requirement to transport that washing machine load is 0.1kg.

The ship's engines use 0.163kg of fuel to generate one kWh, so the energy consumption for just the transport of our washing machine load is 0.6kWh, or 2200kJ.

360kJ of USA residential electricity will cost about $0.015. (Pulled randomly from: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm...)

0.16kg of heavy fuel oil in Singapore will cost $0.05. (From: http://shipandbunker.com/prices/apac/sea/sg-sin-singapore#IF...)

This is, of course, horribly simplified --- e.g. I'm not calculating the cost of washing water, or transport from the container port to the owner's house --- it does at least show that big ship shipping is really, really cheap. While I still think the original author is wrong, they are at least plausibly wrong.

Shipping is always surprisingly cheap.

But manufacturing new clothes every time you need new clothes? In China, land of the "who cares about the EPA" coal-laden environmental almost-slave-labor disaster?

Built from synthetics (which are Petroleum-derived) ?

To add insult to injury, he talks about injuries / deaths from HEPPA-regulated American Power Plants without giving a damn about the suicide nets placed outside of Chinese Sweatshops that builds his clothes because he's too lazy to wash them.

I don't know, how much energy does making clothes in China consume? You're more than welcome to go find out and let us know...

My post was less about the energy usage and more about the Sweatshop workers's working conditions.

He seems concerned about highly-paid Energy Workers in the US who are required (by law) to have safe working conditions (or at least, safe as defined by the law. People still die on the job but at least we try to keep them safe).

And then he turns around and brags about using cheap Chinese workers to sew him new clothes every week. Hypocrisy at its finest.

So what are the relative safety rates of textile workers in China vs energy workers in the US? I would be genuinely interested to know.

Not sure about China, but in Bangladesh where most clothes are made, it is dire. Building collapses, fires, environmental pollution (leather processing), worker injuries. Really bad.

Rana disaster 2013 http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/death-traps-the-bang...

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/apr/14/ethicalbusin...

> Between 25% and 50% of the factories in the region restrict access to toilets and drinking water during the workday.

> The same percentage deny workers at least one day off in seven.

> In more than half of Nike's factories, the report said, employees worked more than 60 hours a week. In up to 25%, workers refusing to do overtime were punished.

Gotta keep those margins. You aren't allowed water because that'd cost the company too much.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285980/Revealed-Ins...

> Steel wire meshes have been fitted to windows at Foxconn's factory to stop workers jumping after a rash of suicides believed to be due to harsh management practices

-------------------

The worst issue is that Chinese media restricts free speech and labor unions, making it hard to gather statistics of any kind.

In the US, we are required by law to report injuries and accidents on the job. China... not so. And since these injuries are embarrassing to state-owned companies, government censorship exists to cover-up these sorts of accidents a lot. Non-government organizations are subject to crackdowns of course.

When a country doesn't have labor unions fighting for workers rights, these sorts of issues happen.

>> “I work on the plastic molding machine from 6 in the morning to 6 at night,” said Xu Wenquan, a tiny, baby-faced 16-year-old whose hands were covered with blisters. Asked what had happened to his hands, he replied, the machines are “quite hot, so I’ve burned my hands.”

The author can still do laundry and skip the washing machine. Hand wash, use the laundry water to flush the toilet, line dry.

That would save electricity...but would probably waste more water. IIRC, a German study into handwashing of dishes found that <1% of people actually managed to use less water than a dishwasher. I'd bet it's a similar usage profile for clothes.

Hand washing dishes consumes massive amounts of water because people tend to leave the tap running while they wash. Laundry is typically done in a basin with a fixed amount of water for wash and rinse. I wouldn't place any bets that it uses less water than a high efficiency front loader, but I would venture that you can come close. Remember, we're not talking law of averages here. We're talking about a single person dedicated to the task of reducing water consumption.

360 KJ is 0.1 KW-h. So it would be 1.5 cents, not 15.

You're absolutely right. I'll update the post.

Also, we seem to have killed the US Energy Information and Administration energy prices website. I feel that my day is now fulfilled.

You have an incorrect period at the end of the link.

I dispute that! I think it's an incorrect full stop.

Fixed. Thanks. (Also, why is HN's URL regex matching full stops at the end of URLs?)

This does assume that the custom made clothes are being slow shipped from China on a cargo boat instead of being shipped via air. Running clothes single use with a 2-3 week lead time for ocean freight sounds a bit tricky.

Not if it follows a regular schedule.

Until a shipment gets delayed by weather and he can't go outside because he has no more clothes. Though he'd probably consider that a positive development.

Meh, he'd just have to take an Uber to a wash & fold, either that, or turn them inside-out and wear them again.

I fail to see how this makes the article plausible.

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