Helpful Hints

Phosphate As A Pollutant

Did you know

… Although phosphates have been banned for use in laundry detergents in the U.S., they are still allowed in dishwasher detergents.

Between 9% and 34% of the phosphorus load going to wastewater treatment plants from domestic sewage comes from automatic dishwashing detergents. (N.B. Pickering, CRWA, 2001)

If your detergent contains 4.5% phosphorus and you use about 4 tablespoons for each load you are adding 2.9 g of phosphorus to the environment. Multiply that by 87 million dishwashers in the U.S. and that equals 338 tons of phosphorus! And those figures are for just running one load of dishes in each dishwasher.

What’s wrong with Phosphate?

Although phosphates are a vital plant nutrient and minimum amount of phosphate is essential to a healthy lake, higher phosphate levels can destroy the health of lakes, streams or other fresh water bodies, because they allow algae in the water to grow faster than normal. This increased algal growth is not only unsightly, but it increases biological oxygen demand which leaves less dissolved oxygen available for fish and other aquatic life. It can also make drinking water more expensive to filter.

In the long run, the excess algal growth can have harsh impacts on the health of a fresh water lake or river.