Dishwashing machines need phosphates

I was discussing this here with Dan just a couple of weeks ago. My last box of TSP, which I bought less than a month ago, is 70% real TSP. It doesn't say so on the box but you can learn that by searching for the MSDS. The brand I bought is Savogran, which I bought at Home Despot. I mentioned in that discussion that I prefer to buy TSP at a real paint store, as you say.

When Oakite was my client, years ago, and we were proposing that they bring back old Oakite powdered household detergent, my conversations with their tech staff tended to be about chelates, phosphates, and other exciting stuff. By that time, phosphate had been taken out of laundry detergent and they told me to add about a tablespoon of TSP to each load, which I did, and still do for tough laundry jobs. It does make a visible difference. I added two tbsp. for my son's baseball and soccer uniforms.

But I'm also a member of the Delaware Estuary project and I've read the research on phosphates, and the EPA's reasons for forcing it out. The total phosphate load on waterways in this area is a combination of commercial agriculture runoff, residential lawn runoff, and (in the past) phosphate in residential laundry outflow getting through sewage treatment. Apparently, it runs right through.

When phosphate was taken out of laundry detergents, there was an almost immediate improvement in oxygen levels in the Delaware River. Algae levels declined sharply. By contrast, consumer education about avoiding overuse of lawn fertilizer seemed to have little effect. Employing methods in commercial ag. to reduce runoff did seem to help, however.

So it is a real issue, and, although I haven't seen anything about it for a couple of decades here, taking it out of laundry detergent did seem to help. I asked the guys at Oakite if the new stuff was as good, and they said that it was not. But they said it could have been. The reason it wasn't is that detergent manufacturers took advantage of the opportunity to make cheaper detergent and they knew their competitors were all doing the same -- and blaming it on the lack of phosphates. They said there are better ingredients than phosphates today but they aren't cheap. However, the cost of the chemicals in detergent really is trivial. It's the advertising and the packaging that cost real money.

If you have a swampy smell, there is some sort of decaying matter causing it. I do not know about Bosch, but in my Kenmore there is a coarse grate above the macerator, a slight finer grate next to the macerator blade , and a fine screen to filter recirculated water. All of these can trap chunks of food, especially fibrous stuff. I have to take it apart and clean them now and then.

Ed, We haven't been using the dishwasher. Just two people it's hardly necessary.

But for laundry... What about using borax? Is there a similar feed-through problem with that?

'Don't know. The issue that concerns the EPA is based on phosphate being a fertilizer, and it seems to have a strong effect in promoting algae blooms -- more than the nitrogen in fertilizers, according to one or two papers I've read.

It can kill a river or a lake that drains residential groundwater, or a river that has a lot of treated wastewater dumped into it, like the Delaware.

I've never heard of any problem with borax, but I just know what I read. It's a mild alkali but I've never heard of it causing problems.

I don't even worry about adding some TSP, because very few people do it, so it can't amount to much of a load on the river. Besides, our treated wastewater dumps into the Raritan, not the Delaware, and we've abandoned all hope on the Raritan. You probably could mine lead from the river bottom. Maybe even spent uranium from the local arsenal. d8-)

I just rinse thoroughly and then put in the washer with a couple drops of palmolive hand dishwashing soap.

YMMV--beware if you have exceptionally soft water it won't wirk, instead you'll have a tub full of foam and likely quite a bit on the the floor, too.

Then there are those of us with septic systems that don't get anywhere near any sort of river, lake or stream.

Sorry Pete, You'll have to find your own lead and uranium. EPA won't let you have any of theirs...

I did look - they were all clean, mostly because I pre-rinse the heavy stuff right into the disposal.

Joe Gwinn

FWIW, we're having exactly the same smell problem with our dishwasher, and I haven't be able to figure it out for months. Now that you've filled us in, I'm going to try some TSP in that machine, as well as in my clothes washer.

I have the same Savogran stuff. Is the 70% new? Powdered products for home use often have such things as anti-clumping ingredients in them. Anyway, it does work.

So far, the washing machine has not been a problem, although we do seem to be getting far more tiny lint than before.

There is a big difference here. For the clothes washing machine in the old days, we used a cup per load, or more. Even then, dishwashers used far less detergent, because they use a puddle at the bottom of the tank, versus filling the tank to the top. Now days, the detergent volume is far less.

On the Bosch, one uses something like 20 milliliters of detergent for ordinary loads, this being the volume of the well at the lowest marker line. The pinch of TSP has to be less than a gram.

If this is true, and it certainly could be, I sense a market opportunity here.

Joe Gwinn

A friend of mine works in appliance repair and he sees this all the time. People are taught by the advertisements that they don't need to rinse their plates. This is false advertisement and he's surprised that the FCC hasn't gone after them for it. He also stated that the Bosch is one of the few he would never consider owning. He repairs far too many of them and hears far too many complaints. It surprised me.

I use my dishwasher as a dish dryer. It's unplugged and the plumbing is plugged. Hand washing takes a total of 40 minutes a week, so I'm not losing anything.

-- Progress is the product of human agency. Things get better because we make them better. Things go wrong when we get too comfortable, when we fail to take risks or seize opportunities. -- Susan Rice

Look at the product number on the box, and then go here:

You'd think so, but having written ad copy and having done the account work for a couple of supermarket products, all I can tell you is that the business costs of those things is very strange. You pay for shelf exposure, so you need to pass a volume threshhold before you can afford to market it. That's what held up Oakite on bringing back their powdered household detergent, which started out around a century ago as nearly pure TSP and then was dropped when liquid detergents took over. It would have cost at least $10 million to get it off the ground, and the projected volumes were not high enough to justify it.

It did have a market as a niche product and I was working on selling it through hardware stores, which is a much cheaper marketing proposition. But they had other products in the pipeline and they decided to go with those, which promised higher volumes.

I heard that TSP was hard on clothing. I use Simple Green and/or borax and bleach for my whites with good effect.

Nowadays, it is far more concentrated.

-- Progress is the product of human agency. Things get better because we make them better. Things go wrong when we get too comfortable, when we fail to take risks or seize opportunities. -- Susan Rice

Bingo! It takes two maybe three washes to achieve full effect. I assume that this is to clean out the hoses et al. I started with a far heavier dose, but had some lime deposits that were cleaned off with Bon-Ami and a rag.

Also, I came upon the following article:

Joe Gwinn

Well, you certainly aren't going to get any algae blooms in a septic system since it is not exposed to any light.

I was just going to ask about the effect of TSP on a septic system. My landlord had to redo the leach field last summer, don't think he'd appreciate me mucking things up... Would a small amount now and then on a tough load laundry mess things up?

Jon

Google "phosphate in septic systems" without quotes, and you'll find a wealth of info. The bottom line is, no problem, except when it's a problem. d8-)

"Ed Huntress" fired this volley in news:4e1b225c$0$10704$ snipped-for-privacy@cv.net:

It's funny, too, because for decades, we used phosphate-based dishwashing powders with no particular effect on our septic systems.

It wasn't until they banned them that all the adverse literature about them vs. septic systems came out.

LLoyd

I've been on septic systems since I moved out of my parents' house. Soap, paper, and bleach are bad for the system, so I go minimal when possible. But my backside puts out enough healthy bacteria for the septic system to continue doing its thing despite my laundry days, so don't worry too much about it.

-- Win first, Fight later.

--martial principle of the Samurai