London Design Festival: these clothes hangers by designer and recent graduate Lisa Marie Bengtsson use charcoal to soak up bad smells so clothes need washing less often (+ movie).

The Bye Bye Laundry clothes hangers are attached to a chamber of activated charcoal, a form of carbon that's been processed with oxygen to be exceptionally porous and absorbent.

Odours from hanging clothes are gradually absorbed by the clumps of charcoal through a filter in the base of the chamber.

"Sometimes we throw half-dirty clothes in the laundry basket because we don’t know where else to put them," says Bengtsson, explaining that the deodorising hangers can reduce water consumption by refreshing clothes between washes.

The hangers were shown at 100% Design during London Design Festival, where Dezeen also hosted a series of talks with designers and experts including industrial designer Yves Behar.

Bengtsson recently graduated from the Product Design course at Kingston University in London.

Other innovative household projects we've featured on Dezeen include a hinged clothes iron by another Kingston graduate and a sewing machine that packs down flat for easy storage.

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Here's some more information from the designer:

Bye Bye Laundry is an object that reflects on our attitude towards dirt with aim to change our washing behavior by using less water. It proposes an alternative solution to freshen up clothes with water, by using activated charcoal to take out smells instead. Today we wash our clothes much more than needed and it harms both the clothes and the planet. I want to raise awareness to this issue and prevent clothes being thrown in the washing machine rapidly.

There is a moment between clean and unclean clothes that has got very little attention. Sometimes we throw half-dirty clothes in the laundry basket too often because we don’t know where else to put them. I saw an opportunity for a piece including activated charcoal that creates a place for clothes that have been worn but are not necessarily ready to be washed.

Each hanger has a glass chamber of ultra-porous activated charcoal and through a filter in the wooden base, the charcoal absorbs odours from the clothes and helps keep them fresh. The activated charcoal need not touch the clothes to function and it takes a few days for the charcoal to absorbs the odour from the clothes. The activated charcoal in the glass chamber is carbon that has been treated with oxygen. The treatment results in a highly porous charcoal. These tiny holes give the charcoal a surface area of 300-2,000 m2/g, allowing liquids or gases to pass through the charcoal and interact with the exposed carbon. It has a great ability to absorb noxious gases and therefore act as a deodorant and an odour remover.