Dishwashing machines need phosphates

Ok, you asked for it. Here's a quick summary of what has happened in the Delaware Basin:

If you really get into the whole Delaware situation, here is an extremely detailed report. But I can't recommend it . It's 200 pages long:

You're talking about the refineries and petrochemical plants around Elizabeth. They dump into the Newark Bay and Hudson estuary. That's the opposite side of the state from the Delaware, and there is no connection.

Mostly on the eastern side of the state, Joe. Again, that has nothing to do with the Delaware.

And the issue with the Delaware has always been oxygen deplation from excessive nutrient loads, not from chemical toxicity. The chemical problems are on my side of the state, in the Passaic River, the Raritan River, Newark Bay and the Hudson estuary.

National Lead damned near paved the bottom of the Raritan before it was shut down.

Huh? You aren't following the issue, or you need to look more closely at the geography. The chemcial pollution problems we have on the Atlantic side of NJ are unrelated to the oxygen-depletion and eutrification issues in the Deleware.

Have fun with the above. I'd recommend a quick look at Figure 3-6 in this report first, which I also listed above. It dramatically shows what the phosphate history is. Because it's based on actual water samples, rather than sediment samples, the dates reflect the actual status of the water at those times:

Look at the bright side - you now can mine the riverbottom.

NJ is a small state, and Delaware is even smaller.

Thanks for all the pointers. I'll rummage around a while.

And the pinch of TSP in the dishwasher is working wonders.

Joe Gwinn

You're confusing the Delaware river with the state of Delaware. Most of the eastern side of NJ is bordered by the Atlantic ocean. Most of the western side of NJ is bordered by the Delaware river. The state of Delaware is actually south of NJ.

I've tried it twice now since you recommended it. Since then, no smell. I'm going to hold up on the TSP unless and until I detect the odor again, and, if so, I'll try the TSP again. That should nail it down.

You got me going on this again. Darn you. It was too hot to take my usual walk after lunch so I made some calls. First I called the copmany that makes Finish dishwasher detergent. They said they pulled the phosphate out on July 1, 2010, along with all of the other major producers. And the reason was, indeed, the 16 states who suddenly outlawed it, combined with the fact that they didn't want to make and market two different products. That's similar to what happened years ago with laundry detergent.

The other call was to the NJ office of USGS, who monitors navigable waters here. The key researcher in this area is supposed to call me back; the one I talked to didn't know the issues with dishwasher detergent, or what the basis was for those states (which does not include NJ) to ban TSP. We'll see if I can get an answer.

This could prove interesting.

Joe Gwinn

TSP isn't the only phosphate used in detergents. The pre-ban dishwashing detergents for which I've been able to find MSDS use Sodium tripolyphosphate (aka STPP). Dunno whether it works better than TSP in that application or not. It's certainly harder to find. Used to be a major component of Calgon water softener but they've taken it out of the US version.

I have no clue about the chemistry itself, but I did see tripolyphosphate mentioned in one or two of those references I passed on to Joe.

Some of the reports talk about total phosphorus, and some talk about phosphates. Another one distinguished between "free" phosphorus and phosphorus that somehow was chemically bound, and a much smaller problem for phytoplankton growth.

It's an interesting field. I wish I knew more about it, but without a chemistry background, all but the results are going to have to remain out of my reach.

Best place is a paint store. I bought Savogran brand.

Be sure you are getting Trisodium Phosphate. Be aware that "TSP" is not definite, and sodium silicate is sometimes sold as TSP. Sodium silicate will not work, and may etch glass.

Read the first review.

Joe Gwinn

Also, you often can't find out what you have from the package label. That's when it's time to check online for the MSDS.

For example, the Savogran brand that Joe mentions, which I also bought last time, is 75% - 80% real TSP, which you can only learn from the MSDS.

But I don't know if all Savogran products labeled "TSP" are the same. There are several. You need the product number, too, which you can get off of the box. Mine is 10621. I bought it at Home Depot, which is not as reliable as getting it from a paint store.

The stuff I got at Home Despot says that it contains trisodium phosphate and sodium carbonate, and that it is 6 percent phosphorus. Pure TSP would be about 18 percent so it's mostly something else other than TSP.

Note that you can get photographic grade TSP from B&H photo for $4.50/pound and shipping.

That's good to know. The critical use I have for it is in a brush-type electrolytic rust/corrosion cleaning formula:

The Savogran TSP seems to work just fine, and is easy to get.

I did look the MSDS up, and the other component is an anti-caking ingredient.

I would not have thought of B&H Photo.

What was used in detergents was Sodium Triphosphate, a related chemical:

Joe Gwinn

You can also order it from

That's good to know. The critical use I have for it is in a brush-type electrolytic rust/corrosion cleaning formula:

FWIW, I've got some of that on order and plan to give it a try when it arrives and see how it works.

Ok, I got the story from a guy who sat on legislative committee meetings while the state laws were being hashed out. It was an hour-long conversation, so I won't try to tell the whole thing, but the discussion did involve a lot about Pflueger cane fly rods and fishing for cutthroat trout in Montana, lake trout in Canada's N.W.T., oysters in the Raritan Bay, and so on.

Blame Washington State. And the EPA. It started with tightening of national point-source effluent standards from EPA. That's industrial and municipal waste discharges.

Many states were able to meet them with old-style (alum flocculent) tertiary treatment, and new-style tertiary treatment (microbes), but Washington allowed the overbuilding of residences around the Spokane River, and the phosphates were filtering down through a porous geological cap, getting into drinking water, and overloading the sewage treatment. The stage beyond tertiary is a microfiltering screen process and it costs like hell.

So it was a cost issue for the State of Washington -- and many others. The Washington legislators sat down with the industry association, the American Cleaning Institute (ACI) and told them how much cheaper it would be to just pull the phosphates out of dishwasher detergent (remember, this is a point-source regulation). That was in 2006. They wanted it done in two years. The industry said they couldn't do it that fast. They asked for 4-1/2 years. The legislators said Ok.

The industry in Europe had tried non-phosphate dishwasher detergents back in the '90s, but they didn't work well and customers stayed away in droves. In

I didn't ask him about the stink - time was short and I was more interested in his choices of fly rods for cutthroats -- but that's where the change came from.

Oh, one thing I didn't explain: Many, or most, of those newer houses near Spokane have septic systems, which is how the phosphate is getting into the aquifer. But the drinking water supplies municipal areas where they have municipal sewers. Some big engineering firm figured out the route.

The ACI says that detergent phosphates, which now is mostly dishwasher detergent, can be up to 25% of the phosphate load from municipal point-source discharges.

Greetings Ed, I live on an island in the Salish Sea (formerly Puget Sound) and used to live on one of the beaches. There were several houses on the beach that were originally only accessible by boat. These old houses had small septic systems. Many of them had drain fields that were back from the beach and the sea wall and were below mean high tide. Others had drain fields that were between the houses and the beach. Now most of these houses can be driven to and are occupied full time instead of just summers. And they have been remodeled into large homes. The septic systems are all grandfathered in. When walking down the beach at low tide you can smell some of the failing systems. And the beach in front of many homes has lots of extra sea weed. Especially the ones with failing drain fields. This sea weed crowds out some types of sea grasses that protect baby salmon when they come down the streams. So Island County really wants these septic systems to stop leaching nutrients into the water. Eric

That's an easy fix. No weeping tiles. Holding tanks only - pumped on a regular basis and deliverd to municipal water treatment plants - and taxed accordingly.

The problem is basically political. If allowed, the county would change the laws. There are many places where the liquid is pumped into a sewer system and the solids collected in septic tanks. This solution requires much smaller pipes and is way cheaper to install. Having just one holding tank that is pumped regularly would mean a huge tank or very frequent pumping. A better solution would be a sand filter mound system. Cheaper too over the long run. The county would like all new systems to be pressurised sand filter mound systems. But once again there is not the support of the citizens for this. And I'm one of 'em. I live far away from the water and have a standard gravity fed system. From the research I did before I installed the system a standard gravity fed system with the new infiltrator type drain field does not pose a pollution hazard at farther than a 100 foot radius. However, I don't know about the phosphate problem because I didn't look into it as I don't use detergents with phosphates. Phosphates may well leach out of infiltrator type systems and travel in ground water for miles. I just don't know, which is one of the reasons I avoid them. Eric