Pardon our skepticism about the recent announcement of a new window glass that cleans itself.
This allegedly miraculous glass is designed to clean itself by making rainwater slide down its exterior surface in cleansing sheets rather than in the usual dirt-streaked rivulets.
A permanent coating of titanium oxide allows this to happen, according to the British glass maker Pilkington, which disclosed its marketing plans Tuesday. For a 20 percent surcharge atop the typical $200 to $600 cost of a basic window, Americans can begin to buy the new variety later this year.
Mind you, we all want to believe. (Except, of course, for the Soap and Detergent Association, a trade group, which is not amused.) We want to liberate ourselves from this most onerous of household tasks and spend all our new free time frolicking in fields of wildflowers.
But let’s just say the “self-cleaning” currency already has been devalued by our collective experience with so-called self-cleaning ovens, which evidently have not been clued in on what they are supposed to do. We are not yet free.
But we are still trying.
Self-cleaning toilets are the rage in several cities. New York has some. The Seattle City Council is considering whether to spend $638,000 a year to maintain five self-cleaning privies around the city. And Los Angeles last year cut a deal with a billboard company that agreed to provide 10 self-cleaning toilets in subway stations in exchange for $50 million in advertising space.
Talk to us when someone comes up with a self-mopping floor, or self-styling hair, or a self-weeding garden.
And when that day comes, what, exactly, will we do with all the new free time and energy we save by not having to exert ourselves on such drudgery?
We’ll be working longer to pay for it.
