Eight Bristol engineering students are refining a hand-spun washing machine. The $35 (£28) product from the Washing Machine Project has been designed to save around 20 hours of hand-washing chores per week.

3,000 of the cheap but effective bare-bones washing machines will be delivered in 2022, mostly to refugee camps but also to low-income families in the UK.

The Bristol firm is led by University of Bristol alumnus Navjot Sawhney - a former Dyson engineer - who dreamt up the idea during a sabbatical in India.

Some six billion people around the world live without a washing machine. For many, the problem is a lack of funds, while others may not have consistent access to electricity - or simply no electricity at all.

Sawhney saw the need for hand-spun washing machines while making cooking stoves for a social enterprise in Pondicherry, south-east India, in 2016. Staying in a small village close to the city, he struck up a friendship with a local woman called...