I buy powder with no colourful plastics (I too have written about this, the worst being that mother fish were feeding them as food to their babies!). A one-kg concentrate lasts me six months. I use fraction of the powder recommended for good reasons.

The first is that our clothes are never really dirty.

The second is we wear our clothes more than once, or twice...we're saving the environment, you know.

And the third is there are only two of us at home now.

I have a friend who despairs of her husband's constant changing of clothes. She tells me he has three clothes changes a day, PJs, gold clothes, or business, and relaxing clothes at night. He never wears something twice.

I can understand children's clothing needing regular washing, but we adults can do better. There's no cpming back to fix up our mistakes.