Why Aren't Your Dishes Getting Clean? New Environmental Laws

[stew278]

Fox is reporting this like it is something new? I thought most places banned phosphates in detergents about 40 years ago because the phosphorus in the wastewater was leading to massive weed and algae blooms in lakes and rivers. They switched to sulfate based surfactants instead. Phosphorus is one of the main limiting nutrients for aquatic plant life, so allowing large amounts of P to get into aquatic systems is very bad.

People can clean their dishes with a little elbow grease. Cleaning up a lake that is so weed choked you could walk across it isn't so easy.

[krashkart]

They probably figured that we had forgotten about that by now.

[Skybird]

Overfertilisation of soil and water, and collapsing rivers and lakes, both happening on great scale - that was what the excessive emission of phosphates had helped. Banning them was the right and necessary thing to do.

Overfertilisation still is a big problem due to the intense agriculture being run on smaller and fewer farms that are expected to produce more food, and thus use more fertilizer.

But at least an easy to avoid factor has been removed.

No dishwasher in my household. But still I manage to survive.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Overfertilisation of soil and water, and collapsing rivers and lakes, both happening on great scale - that was what the excessive emission of phosphates had helped. Banning them was the right and necessary thing to do.

And by what measure do you assume that this is so, Sky? Phospates are fertilizers and their principle source is agricultural use, not detergents. A great deal of care is taken to ensure that they do not end up in potable water sources, (i.e. dishwater) but virtually nothing is done to reduce the impact of agricultural runoff, which ends up in lakes and reservoirs. In fact, their use is subsidized in most industrialized countries because banning high-gain agribusiness tends to get unpopular when food prices rise or people starve.

Overfertilisation still is a big problem due to the intense agriculture being run on smaller and fewer farms that are expected to produce more food, and thus use more fertilizer.

This is true.....in poor areas. Modern agribusiness has no such problem. In the wealthy "breadbasket" nations, particularly the US, agriculture is a science. Corporations extract vast amounts of productive crops from arable land year after year with no ill effect by using good land management and engineered crops.

Feel free to look up crop yields if you're not convinced. Agribusiness provides a vast surplus; so much so that the aforementioned nations literally give it away, no matter what the conditions are. The only exceptions are in the case of corn-based products, which have been hijacked by state initiatives to promote ethanol use, and sugarcane products, which have been similarly abused by the state to promote the use of corn.

But at least an easy to avoid factor has been removed.

No, all that has been removed is a fairly irrelevant factor. I don't even need to do any research to know that dishwasher runoff contributes very little to freshwater usage, and that it passes through munincipal filters in every case where there might be someone who can afford a dishwasher.

This is nothing more than a politcal move to convince people like you that something is being done to preserve the environment whilst simultaneously satisfying people like me by not interfering with the dynamics of modern agribusiness.

in addition, as is always the case with such legislation, what you don't see is the inherent unintended effect. All you see is the ideal. What do you think people will do when their detergent doesn't work anymore? The article itself should have made it clear. They'll buy new dishwashers or sue, or just use vast amounts of lousy detergents, or use more dishwater. None of these things are productive by any measure.

No dishwasher in my household. But still I manage to survive.

In what way, if any, does that justify anything? People dont want to just survive, they want something better. That's what drives the the technological innovation behind your own ability to question such things on a fascinating piece of technology, and mine as well.

I'll discuss the philosphical implications of the argument later if you wish, but I trust that I've made my point.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl

And by what measure do you assume that this is so, Sky? Phospates are fertilizers and their principle source is agricultural use, not detergents. A great deal of care is taken to ensure that they do not end up in potable water sources, (i.e. dishwater) but virtually nothing is done to reduce the impact of agricultural runoff, which ends up in lakes and reservoirs. In fact, their use is subsidized in most industrialized countries because banning high-gain agribusiness tends to get unpopular when food prices rise or people starve.

I do not assume it. It is proven scientific fact. Artificial fertilizers as well as phosphates in household agents like dishwasrer and washing machines caused/casue much problems in the environment and the water cycle. Again, that is not just my "assumption".

This is true.....in poor areas. Modern agribusiness has no such problem. In the wealthy "breadbasket" nations, particularly the US, agriculture is a science. Corporations extract vast amounts of productive crops from arable land year after year with no ill effect by using good land management and engineered crops.

Agricultural use of soil is extremely intense in the US, and right becaseu of that the concentrated use of fertilisers and problemtic chnages to the gorund water level can be seen in the Us very clearly. Also regarding concentrated cattle farming and transportation key nodes where they get loaded onto trains: you have incredibly many animals in a very small area, and their excremnts, the needed infrastructure, the transportation of water and food, and the unavoidable local chnage to vegetation casue far reaching chnages and problems both above and belo the surface. We talk about pollutions and again water ground levels here. For differentr reasons, in Auistrlia there are compatrable problem with the areas where the are running agrucvltural farm: some experts say that nowhere else in the world you can see the process of salienation of the soil moving on so fast.

On apper and in glossy paper adverts it all may look bright and nice. In reality, it isn't. Again, I just quote by mekory what I have read about it by more knowing minds who are in the matter.

Feel free to look up crop yields if you're not convinced. Agribusiness provides a vast surplus; so much so that the aforementioned nations literally give it away, no matter what the conditions are. The only exceptions are in the case of corn-based products, which have been hijacked by state initiatives to promote ethanol use, and sugarcane products, which have been similarly abused by the state to promote the use of corn.

In Germany and many European countries the number of farms is declinging (becasue many farmers cannot live by farming anymore). The total ammount of alnd attributed to farming, also is declining here.

No, all that has been removed is a fairly irrelevant factor. I don't even need to do any research to know that dishwasher runoff contributes very little to freshwater usage, and that it passes through munincipal filters in every case where there might be someone who can afford a dishwasher.

Sorry, you are simply wrong, maybe becsasue you ignore that phopshates also were included in washing machine agents - and these produce very significant ammounts of sewage rich in many different chemical agents. Filters in all honour, but you have to explain why the phosphate levels in waters in indusatrialised natiosn where so high in the past that you had that stuff in many lakes and rivers. It entered the natural environemt via sewers, and farming soil.

Not just my assumption. Documented fact.

This is nothing more than a politcal move to convince people like you that something is being done to preserve the environment whilst simultaneously satisfying people like me by not interfering with the dynamics of modern agribusiness.

Oh no, not this stuff again please. The wellmeaning honest entrepreneurs of free market economy, the evil bad politicians interfering with laboratory data. At least you could finally realise that the market actors act as corrupt and deceiving as politicians do, so that leaving things to the economy factions only and hoping for self-regulation via the market will just move you out of the frying pan and right into the fire.

It's an extremly naive scheme you use there over and over and over again, really. And it has never worked that way, never. Not in ancient times, not in the modern present, not in democracies and not in communist regimes.

in addition, as is always the case with such legislation, what you don't see is the inherent unintended effect. All you see is the ideal.

Now tell that yourself when once again packing out an ancient most classicel economy theory (that'S what it is known as over here)

What do you think people will do when their detergent doesn't work anymore? The article itself should have made it clear. They'll buy new dishwashers or sue, or just use vast amounts of lousy detergents, or use more dishwater. None of these things are productive by any measure.

If that is the case, that is to be adressed. But certainly not by going back to a highly pollutive method of using phosphates in washing machines and dishwashers again.

The most simple alternative for example is - to buy a newer machine, or to pass on a dishwasher.

In what way, if any, does that justify anything? People dont want to just survive, they want something better. That's what drives the the technological innovation behind your own ability to question such things on a fascinating piece of technology, and mine as well.

You mean the latest razor by Gilette - with fantastic 5 blades...? Not one or two cars in the garage, but three or four? The tooth paste that cleans whitewr than white, the soap that washes purer than pure, the item that you have not missed before but once you have it shows you that your life was useless before? Better than best, more than most, faster than fastm shinier than shiny?

I'll discuss the philosphical implications of the argument later if you wish,

The what...? James, it is about an agent not being polluted into the environmental and no longer piushing algs to explode in waters and see these waters then collapsing. You reaslly blow this up in size, and you are not really convincing in your reasons here. And on fertilizers, sorry, but they are both light and shadow. Light AND shadow. They are not a free ride into unlimited manna heaven. The agricultural gain you get from them (I don't deny the benefit), comes at a cost that you cannot avoid. And the more intense the use of fertilizers (not to mention pesticides), the higher the cost is.

It is not free. Don'T fall for the adverts of the petrochemical industry. If we woluld believe the industry, then there never would be any probeloms at all, just hapopy cows on the meadow and happy people in the streets and always blue sky over springtime landscapes that knows no chimney and no environmental damage.

Well - ion a fairy tale book maybe. And even there there is the evil witch and the dark sorcerer.