Yeah, I'm aware of the law regarding federal preemption, but I have seen no evidence that it applies in this case. If the EPA wrote a regulation on it and if a state tried to oppose it, there would be a preemption case.
Again, I have not come across any such issue in the little reading I've done about it.
I have half a can, sealed with a glob of silicone rubber and saved for emergencies. I keep it next to my half-bottle of carbon tet, which is even better with small taps. d8-)
I believe that he's saying that IF the EPA had declared phosphates in dishwasher detergent to be ACCEPTABLE then the states could not have banned it.
If that's what he's saying, that's not the case. On the other hand, if the EPA banned it, and a state tried to legalize it, preemption would have kicked in.
That's the case with lots of laws. Unless there's a 14th Amendment issue involved (regarding a "fundamental right"), or some specific federal authorization, states can make more restrictive laws than the related federal ones. Those issues have been involved, with the resolution still to be determined, over immigration. Likewise, even after a constitutional Amendment legalizing alcohol, states can regulate it, and can authorize municipalities to outlaw its sale.
I didn't follow this dishwasher-detergent/phosphate law to the end of the line, but it looks like the EPA wasn't involved in the bans. It appears that it's all state law. I could be mistaken, but I didn't see any federal administrative law involved in it.
I don't recall that the EPA did anything explicit either, which is the point. The EPA could have prevented extension to dishwasher detergents with a word, but chose not to. (One assumes that there were lots of private discussions.)
In other words, if the EPA had said that a dishwashing detergent phosphate ban was unnecessary, it would have undermined efforts in the states to legislate or by regulation impose such a ban, and no such bans would have happened.
Joe Gwinn
This is how we got the mess we have with automobile emissions laws. However Congress finally fixed that--after some year California can no longer have different emission standards from the Federal government, but I don't think that year has arrived yet.
You're right that the Federal EPA wasn't involved, at least not directly--they may have given some "aid and comfort". I'd like to see Congress enact legislation that forbids the ban.
Its main effect is that it's taking us back to the Middle Ages when people had to roll their own cleaning agents.
Somebody needs to open-source a formula for an effective phosphate-based dishwasher detergent. I've looked for one and the only ones I can find are phosphate-free Greenie crap.
This is not my turf -- nothing to do with chemistry is my turf -- but, as I've mentioned, I have had some discussions about TSP with Oakite engineers, when they were my client.
The takeaway was that TSP neatly solves a lot of little problems, but it's not as good a detergent as some of the other options available today. Reading about what they're doing in Europe, it appears that they have some better formulations.
They are tricky and sometimes are more expensive. Now the question is whether the externalized costs of using TSP in dishwasher detergent are less than the cost of the new formulations.
That is, if all environmental issues are to be taken as a straight dollars-and-cents proposition. "Externalized costs" is a fuzzy concept because the costs in quality of life are always arguable.
On the whole, I've thrown my hat in with environmental protection. I don't doubt that they've gone overboard in some areas, and I can see why they may have had to in some of those instances. But 10% of the phosphate load from detergents was never trivial, if a particular body of water is still suffering oxygen depletion or eutrification. The lower Delaware, which has always been one of my main interests in water-quality issues, had a 0% oxygen level around Philadelphia in 1960. That was a dead river. It's come back to life. I'll leave the details for those who want to fight it out, but I like living rivers much more than dead ones. I saw the dead river when I was a kid, starting in 1953. It's an ugly, depressing, and costly sight. I'll err on the side of protection and I'm willing to pay the small price for it. Water spots on my drinking glasses are not equateable to millions of dead fish.
I have no way to know if that's the case, but, assuming it is, I'd still want to see some up-to-date reports that analyze these challenged rivers and estuaries before making a judgment. I'm not convinced that the cost of eliminating phosphates is greater than the cost of not doing so.
Who washes the dishes in your house and do they use a dishwasher?
Me. Yes. Always.
Me, no, never.
(so alike, and yet so different!)
Maybe I cook more elaborate meals. My wife works late, I work at home, and I like to cook. But gawd, do I make a mess in the kitchen.
Right now we have so damned much squash and so many tomatoes from the garden that I'm running out of recipes. Not enough bluefish, though.
Tomatoes and bluefish, we like.
Squash - we different!
I just don't make that big of a mess in the kitchen. (Well, actually I do, but I clean up as I go)
I've been grilling it outside, with olive oil and celantro. Very good, but you can only go that well so many times.
And you're not getting white crud all over everything?
Nope. I'm using Finish powder, "phosphate-free."
I have no trouble with cleaning. My interest perked up when Joe mentioned the stink. I have had some stink, but not all the time.
I'll have to try Finish next time--Cascade just makes a mess. Didn't used to before the phosphates were removed.
One issue that's come up recently is that most of us use too much. I think someone mentioned it in this thread.
I reduced the amount to just over half of what the two little cups will take. It cleans just as well, and I've had no spots since I did that.
Now I don't have to be embarrassed when I have the girls in for a cocktail. d8-) It's worth a try.
Notice the slide here, from dishwashing detergents (which struggle to be a 0.5% problem) to all phosphates (95% of which are used in agriculture, and thus are largely out of reach).
And as for dead rivers in Delaware and NJ, the claim is being made that these rivers were restored by the phosphate ban. Forgotten is all the cleanups of the chemical industry that happened at the same time. (I lived in NJ in the late 1950s, and do remember the smell of the chemical plants.) So which cleanup caused which good effect? Or, was it the aggregate of all the cleanups?
Joe Gwinn
Joe, do you remember the numbers from that report I cited? Point-source outflows were measured as 80% of the phosphate source in this river. Since there is no tertiary recovery, the conclusion is that almost all of that comes from detergents.
If you want, I'll post a link to the study. It's long and dull, but, hey, that's my life. d8-)
What chemical industry are you talking about? The only chemical industry on the Delaware is around Philadelphia, just before it dumps into the bay.
The whole middle Delaware and much of the upper Delaware were dead when I was a kid. Completely dead. It was not the chemical industry. There wasn't any up there.
You may be thinking of the Raritan or the Passaic Rivers. They both have serious chemical problems. In the case of the Raritan, a lot of it comes from the closed John's Manville and National Lead plants, plus two others that dumped heavy metals and paint chemicals. The Hudson's problem is PCBs. I don't know specifically what the Passaic's problem is.
Again, that report gave a pretty good analysis of before-and-after phosphate loads on the Delaware before and after the original ban, at numerous points along the river, so the evidence is not trivial. I'm not going to try to judge its veracity; I don't do chemistry. But the evidence does seem pretty clear.
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