There’s a new generation of washing machines that use charged particles
of silver to kill bacteria. Rebecca Williams reports the Environmental
Protection Agency says it’s going to regulate the machines as
pesticides:
Transcript
There’s a new generation of washing machines that use charged particles
of silver to kill bacteria. Rebecca Williams reports the Environmental
Protection Agency says it’s going to regulate the machines as
pesticides:
The Samsung Silver Ion machine generates tiny charged particles of
silver that kill bacteria on contact.
The EPA has decided any kind of machine that generates ions to kill
pests has to be regulated as a pesticide.
Andrew Maynard is a scientist with the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars. He says there are worries that these kinds of
machines could kill helpful bacteria:
“What’s causing concern is the release of these charged silver atoms
into the environment which can kill bacteria but also might end up
killing bacteria we don’t want them to.”
Maynard says there are about 130 products on the market now that use
tiny silver particles to kill bacteria. They’re in everything from kitchen
countertops to food containers.
But he says EPA hasn’t decided whether to regulate those products as
pesticides.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.