By now, you have probably heard that phosphates are not good for the environment, BUT do you know how that really applies to your day to day life?
When too much phosphorus exists in a waterway (think stream, river, ocean) it makes the growth of green algae overgrow.
Think about it like this the phosphorus is naturally occurring in nature but too much works like a miracle grow for the algae and then that chokes out all the natural growth, killing natural plants, fish, crabs etc.
In fact, just one-pound pf phosphates can produce between 400 and 700 pounds of green algae!
That massive growth not only turns the water green (like pea soup), but it also changes the ecosystem. Algae blocks the sunlight, killing the plants below the surface, and the natural oxygen production. Then as the algae dies, it consumes massive amounts of oxygen when decomposing. Now you have stagnant, non-oxygenated water and the animals (fish, frogs, crabs what ever was living there) die.
Now we know phosphates are bad for the water and the ecosystem; and yet are used by many companies in their dishwashing, dishwasher, washer, and other soap products. The reason they continue to use it is because they are cheap and effective and what they are used to.
Many of those companies use trickster advertising on the package, but you can outsmart them.
Easiest thing is do not buy products with phosphates on the label (remember they do not have to list on the label all of the ingredients, so if you are not sure of the company be very wary) you do NOT have to use phosphates for effective cleaning, and natural alternatives do not have to make the products more expensive.
If you see a label (this is an actual example from Cascade auto-dishwasher soap) that says “contains just 4.5% phosphorus in the form of phosphates, equal to 1 gram of phosphorus per tablespoon”
you might think hmm not much
What that MEANS however is the 4.5% represents just the amount of phosphorus and NOT the total amount of phosphates. This is important because a phosphate molecule is MORE THAN just phosphorus atoms; it also contains sodium and oxygen atoms. So even though the phosphorus content is 4.5% the actual amount of total phosphate (the whole phosphate molecule, not just the phosphorous atoms) is approximately 18% or nearly 4 grams of phosphates per tablespoon.
Here is to reducing YOUR footprints on the planet!
