The other day I was unloading my dishwasher and noticed spots on my glasses and white residue on my plastics. I cursed the dishwasher and ran it through another cycle. The spots did not come out. I cursed again and hand washed everything. Then I remembered something. Something I had heard almost a year ago about a Doomsday event. Someone had taken the phosphates out of my dishwashing detergent! Would I ever have clean dishes again without having to hand wash them? Were the machines that made my life easy being rendered useless?

Starting July 1, 16 states banned phosphates from dishwashing detergent. What do phosphates do for dishes? They soften the water and keep minerals like calcium, magnesium, and food particles from sticking to them. This prevents those ghastly spots. What do phosphates do to the environment? They can cause algae blooms in waterways thereby depleting the water of oxygen. This can choke marine life.

So, if it’s a good for the environment, we should do it, right? Well, it’s more complex than that. Some people find that they have to prewash their dishes before putting it in the dishwasher which uses more water and detergent – not so eco friendly from a water consumption point of view (never mind the wasted time in our busy lives – who wants to hand wash dishes like in the dark ages?). People also use more water when they hand wash dishes because they tend to leave the tap running the entire time.

Most of the phosphate in our environment comes from manure and fertilizer that enter the water system through runoff. Dishwashing detergent only contributes a small portion to this pollution about 10-12 %. Most of this can be removed by water treatment plants so the actual percentage of phosphates from dishwashing detergent that reaches our water supply is far less. The biggest impact would be on homes with septic or drain field systems where phosphate can filter back into the groundwater. So, why are we focusing on this? As our population has grown, water treatment plants cannot handle the load of phosphate they are seeing. The state of Utah is one of the 16 that has banned phosphates. A memo from the Department of Environmental Quality (January 31, 2011) states the following:

“Hardly any wastewater treatment plants in Utah is designed to remove phosphorus…. If the industry was to revert to the prior formula for dishwashing detergent, i.e., 8.7 % phosphorus, it is estimated that 364,000 pounds per year of phosphorus would be added to Utah’s waters. The cost of removing that amount of phosphorus would be approximately $11.5 million/year.”

It’s easier to ban phosphates than build new plants.

The movement to ban phosphates in dishwashing detergent started in Washington state in 2006. More states capitulated because different state laws can lead to major disruptions of retail distribution for manufacturers. Imagine having to make different detergents with different phosphate content for different states. It’s a Cascade nightmare. The phosphate controversy is not new for the detergent industry. Laundry detergents underwent some radical changes in the early 1970’s when phosphate was removed from them. Our whites have been grey ever since because phosphate was the “ancient Chinese secret” to cleaner clothes.

In the meantime, people are stockpiling phosphate containing detergents and buying phosphates separately to add to their dishwashers. Some people in banned areas are driving hundreds of miles to buy the “good stuff”. Colorado is not one of the states that have banned phosphates but it’s getting harder to find dishwashing detergents here with it.

I wonder why we are starting with dishwashing detergent phosphate ban and not fertilizer phosphate ban. Maybe there’s less backlash from the American public than the powerful agricultural industry. Whether this will positively impact our environment remains to be seen. In the meantime, I find half a cup of white vinegar added to the dishwasher before each cycle helps a lot. I’m tired of seeing spots.