Now Phosphate Free!

Okay, so this is less a blog post and more of a PSA for my tens of readers. I don't know about you, but we recently started noticing that our dishes were coming out of he dish washer dirtier and dirtier. I was seriously considering calling a repair man (since our washer was less than 2 years old) when we just happened to hear this story in NPR on the way to work one day.

Based on what I learned from this story, the phrase "Now Phosphate Free" might as well be code for "this detergent doesn't work any more". I've done very little research on phosphates, but it looks like there is some conflicting evidence on how much damage they may or may not do to our waterways. The states that banned them seem to have gone the "better safe than sorry" route. That's all well and good, but as far as I can tell the public was largely uninformed about the change. This is especially true in states that did NOT ban phosphates. For efficiency sake, most detergent companies removed the phosphates from all of their detergents so that they didn't have to worry about accidentally shipping an "illegal substance" to the wrong state.

Anyway, I'd encourage you to do your own research on phosphates and come to your own conclusions. According to the story, there are ways to make sure your dishwasher still, you know, WASHES DISHES even with the new detergent formulas. Just wanted to give you - all three of you - a heads up. If your dishes aren't coming clean any more, it's probably not your fault. And for heaven's sake, don't spend money on a repair man or buy a new dishwasher!

*** This now concludes your Public Service Announcement for the day***