If you travel a lot, you’ll know that one of the biggest dilemmas is traveling light but still having enough clothes. In some locations, finding a laundry can be hard and expensive – or if you’re further afield, impossible to find. Australian inventor Ashley Newland has come up with the Scrubba Washbag, a possible solution that is currently being funded on Indiegogo.
The 142g (5oz) bag is compact and portable and has a flexible washboard built into it. To use you just fill with 2-4 litres of water and a small amount of soap, shampoo or washing liquid, throw in the equivalent of around 2-3 tee shirts and agitate for 40 secs. When finished, you pour out the water, rinse your clothes and then dry. Voila, clean clothes.
The project is already fully funded (with over 3 weeks to go), and you can pre-order for $40. Ashley expects to have the product shipping around mid April.
p.s. Being an Aussie I would of thought he’d have picked a better name.  Scrubber is Aussie slang for a….ummm, I’ll let you research this yourself 🙂
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He glosses over the rinsing and drying, which would seem to be the most problematic parts of the operation. If you don’t have access to a sink, how do you rinse the clothes? If you do, why do you need the bag?
It is a neat idea…but this is really just your average every day dry bag with a rubber washboard added. Not sure you need the washboard (especially since it’s about a $20 markup over standard dry bags)
Why not find an ugly overweight girl from the country (scrubba, Australian Slang) to do your wash and save yourself the hassle 😛
@Vladimir – rinsing could be done in the bag. As a bush walker I don’t like putting (biodegradable) chemicals directly into waterways. Using this I could fill with water, soap and clothes, scrub and then empty the bag away from the waterway, return to get more water, rinse and then empty ( again away from the waterway).
@Raph84 – the washboard helps agitate and clean your clothes. As for the markup….. 🙂
@Bob – ummm……… 😛
It’s not that big of a markup. The factory needs a profit, there are labor and material costs, marketing costs, resellers want a cut too. What about the time spent testing the unit, time and money spent on applying for the patent? Patent can run you over 10k in one country alone depending on the product (and still doesn’t guarantee people won’t copy it). You can’t just look at the cost of materials and not consider the other costs.