Cascade phosphate free is getting TERRIBLE reviews by customers!

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Virtually none of California's phosphate waste enters lakes and rivers, because that is our water source from the mountains. In most cases, the waste water enters a municipal treatment facility where microorganisms are killed, as much as possible, and phosphates filtered out. To my knowledge, no problems with too many phosphates or algae overgrowth in our oceans. The main seawater quality problem we have are streams that empty to the ocean that are NOT part of the water supply system. During the rainy season, these streams receive a lot of run-off water from storm drains, roof gutters, etc that goes into the ocean without treatment.

As a result, chemicals and microorganisms that would soak into the soil are instead carried out to the ocean (one reason our roof gutters drain to the street is to prevent erosion of our clay hillsides, which cannot absorb too much water or they "melt". Our city is building a system to capture this water, filter it, and use it for agricultural purposes (newer homes with TWO water meters, one for household and one for gardens; also the agricultural water can be used for farms, golf courses, etc.). Also, a lot of water seeps into the ground and the city operates three wells to utilize this naturally filtered water (for agricultural). The result is that the city has become a net EXPORTER of water during the November-May cool season, when there is little landscaping use of water; during these months, the city produces about 10,000,000 liters (2.5 million gallons) of EXCESS water DAILY, and exports it to cities without such a system (our city has a large seasonal creek that runs through it---other cities lack such a creek or stream).

However, there is a cost associated with this green activity: the fixed part of one's water bill (the part you pay even if you don't use a drop of water, to finance the operation of the system) is close to $40 per month. I have low water use landscaping plants, so my water use bill on top of the $40 is only $10-12, for a total monthly bill of about $50, but if I were away for a month on vacation in the winter with landscaping water turned off, I would still incur a monthly bill of $40. On the other hand, residents of nearby cities that import our water pay our city a fee, which must be reflected in higher water rates for them.

Northern Orange County, CA, has a huge seasonal river (Santa Ana River) that drains the large Southern California mountains (the local ski resorts), known as the San Bernardino Mountains (12,000 foot elevation). The river in central OC is full of honeycombed berms to PREVENT the water from reaching the ocean. The river is also protected by dykes, because there have been catastrophic floods in the past when there were no dykes. The idea is to capture the water, force it to percolate into the ground, and then it is pumped out by wells in central OC. Closer to the ocean, there are "injection wells" which force waste water INTO the ground, the reason is to prevent ocean salt water from migrating inland as water is pumped out by inland wells 10-20 miles (15-30 km) away from the ocean.
 
@mrboilwash

I know people in Germany (mainly in their 50s and older) who STILL boilwash, "weil Mutti machte es" (because Mother did so....remember, my peers in Germany still say "Mutti" and use die alte Rechtschreibung...I try to use die neue Rechtschreibung so I don't seem like a dinosaur; most of my German friends are too stubborn to change).

I recent made reservations for an October trip to Europe, using Lufthansa (only connecting through DUS, not actually stopping off in Germany) and once again the unfortunate Lufthansa flight attendants will have to answer my grammar questions. Basically, when I converse with them and know a word but not its gender or plural forms, I will ask the flight attendant for the proper usage. Is this is in their job description? NOPE, but I ask anyway. Helps to warm up my brain for using only German while in Germany. I also bring a German grammar review book along as reading on the plane (just fascinating....). I am generally less forward than most Germans (who will start a conversation with anyone about anything) but if they ask about the book then I will ask them grammar and usage questions (serves them right for opening their mouths).

Also don't forget: if you aren't certain about whether a verb has an irregular form in the second or third person singular, just use the infinitive and Sie. It disguises the fact that you aren't certain about your grammar, and your German listener thinks you are simply being overly polite and formal. I have been using this trick for 35 years, since I was in university, and no one in German has ever spotted my deception. They simply say "please use 'Du' with me, 'Sie' is too polite/formal". What they don't understand is that I am NOT trying to be polite, I just don't want to make one of those "ach, dumme, unfähige Amis" mistakes.

I learned the phrase "stupid, incompetent Americans" from "Hogan's Heroes". Yes, it was shown in German as "Ein Käfig voller Helden", but in order to appreciate fully the humor, look at an episode of the original English version. Most of the actors playing the role of Germans WERE from Germany, so there was nothing artificial about their accents. They may have exaggerated, but none of them (Werner Klemperer or John Banner, for example) spoke accentless English.



passatdoc++8-7-2010-12-22-17.jpg
 
@foraloysius

Hmmm, I don't remember Miep Kraak. Was she dressed the same as Josephine and Klementine? The Comet ads began in black and white in the very early 1960s. When I saw Klementine on German tv, I did not yet understand German, but I could see the similarity of the outfits/ad concept and that she was selling a German brand of detergent. What I failed to understand was that both Comet and Ariel belonged to P&G, so they were free to steal their own concept. Other than a few viewers such as myself, who had seen Comet ads for years, understood that this was a recycled ad concept.

Josephine the Plumber was played by actress Jane Withers. She was more famous as a child actress and did not win that many adult acting roles. Perhaps her most visible adult acting role was as Vashtai in "Giant", in which she portrayed Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson's neighbor and best friend.

(grammer pearl: when there are two or more nouns--proper or otherwise--in sequence, only the last noun must take the possessive form. Some people make both nouns possessive if there are two nouns "Elizabeth Taylor's and Rock Hudson's best friend" but it would sound stilted if you made a string of three or more nouns all possessive. Example: "Trixi, Irene, Margriet, and Christina's mother was also their Queen" rather than "Trixi's, Irene's, Margriet's, and Christina's mother...")
 
A less vexing way of putting it might be, "The mother of Trixi, Irene, Margriet, and Christina was also their Queen."

Although it adds the words "The" and "of", it's actually fewer characters than making every daughter's name possessive.
 
I`m not that old, just in my 40`s and I still keep the tradition of boilwashing happily alive :-)
I wouldn`t worry too much about your German grammar. Nobody thinks of "dumme unfähige Amis", when a foreigner makes a mistake.
 
Sie thoughts

When I studied German in high school, I made a very conscious effort to be formal as much as possible in exercises or in class talk. It wasn't easy--the teacher really didn't care much about whether we addressed her formally, and the text book exercises always seemed to involve exchanges between high school students. Yet, I persisted. I'd heard too many stories about the American embarrassing him or herself by using "du" at the wrong time. (This was years ago, so things could have changed. But we heard stories in German class about the bus driver who used "du" and got fired for it.) I figured by forcing myself to be formal as much as possible, it would--with luck--be a default if I ever got to Germany. (I never have, but that's another story!)
 
I wonder if most of the dishwashers leaving the white film are newer one rinse machines?

TSP and STPP are different:
TSP= Na3 PO4 12H2O 1 percent solution= 12 pH
STPP= Na5 P3 O10 1 percent solution= 9.7 pH*

*Niven, William W. Jr, Industrial Detergency, pp 24-25
Table 3-8 Principal Properties And Uses of Alkaline Detergents

Sorry I don't know how to do subscripts.
 
According to that German test: "Most bio cleaners for the dishwasher are not suited to anything." Clean rinsing was a problem for most.

They seemed to like the Somat 9 multi-function tabs the best, except that they are expensive at 23 cents each. They thought a multi-function tab from Aldi was almost as good and more affordable at 7 cents each.

The last time I was in a local Aldi here, I think the only dishwasher detergent I saw was powder; no tabs. Some of the products they sell in the US are sourced from US private-label manufacturers, so it could be a completely different formulation from what Aldi sells in Germany.
 
I just got the very lsat box of Powdered Cascade with some sort of Dawn additive at Big Lots for $5.00 for the very large box. 6.4% phosphates. They had Cascade Complete Gel in the huge jugs for $7.50, but the phosphorous content was only 5.0. They had some sort of Sun Solutions dishwasher detergent for dirt cheap but was only 5.0 phospherous. I also got 6 weeks ago two 48 ct. Cascade Complete all-in1 powder tablet packs with a 7.0 phospherous content.
 
So I ran a load of dishes. I put the phosphate free cascade complete in both detergent cups (as usual) and 1/2 tbs STPP in the prewash and 1tbs STPP in the main detergent compartment. This didn't do nearly as great of a job as the three year old box of phosphate cascade did. There were still some faded wine stains (2 days old) on the tub of the dishwasher and one glass still had dried green stuff in it from a green smoothie. What am I doing wrong?
 
One rinse after the wash - not enough for me

I think the one rinse after a main wash is related to the Energy Star program. Manufacturers trying to get the best energy rating look for ways to reduce water amounts. For example my Miele DW purchased in 2006 always does at least 2 rinses and depending on the soil it may add a rinse and do 3. Move forward to 2009-2010...the Miele models released to the USA only do 1 rinse after the wash when using the Normal cycle which is the cycle used to get energy star ratings. It's not that Miele thinks 1 rinse is OK because this same Normal cycle is configured for 2 rinses in other countries.

No doubt a second rinse would help things but if the water is hard you are still going to have to deal with that. Perhaps some on this forum who have purchased newer DWs can see if they have a cycle that only rinses one time after the wash and let us know the result when using non phosphate detergent.
 
Haven't Tried It With Non-Phosphate Detergent

But my older model Kenmore portable (built by Frigidaire), only as one rinse after two washes in the normal cycle.

Results were all over the place depending upon detergent and rinse aid used (Ecover rinse aid left yibbles and bits all over the place), but good results with Jet Dry.

Since my machine has a mechanical timer often reset it to the final portion of the second wash cycle after it has filled for rinse. This in effect gives me two rinses because the machine will drain, purge, fill and rinse again.

Overall find with today's modern dishwasher detergents that have built in rinse aids, things can get kind of frothy in the main wash, so a second rinse eases my mind am not drinking out of soap laden glasses/cups.
 
Make and model is Whirlpool Du1055xtp. It's almost six years old. Yes I always purge the water at the sink and use high temp wash. I don't use rinse agent simply because the rinse aid dispenser started leaking out rinse aid a while back. I've really never had much problem getting dishes clean......

Like I said, the three year old box of Cascade with phosphates did a much better job than me just adding STPP to the Cascade Complete non-phosphate....The only thing different would be that the three year old box of Cascade with phosphates had bleach in it. Perhaps that's why
 
I think its because the Cascade of today is not the Cascade of three years ago.

Our Maytag dishwasher will clean everything acceptably with even Walmarts new phosphate free Great Value powder. It's just that the glass isn't as clean and is water spotted, even with a rinse aid. Adding STTP gets rid of the spots and makes the glass very shiny and see through without spots.

Maybe you should try a DW detergent with bleach and then add the STTP. I saw some Cascade Gel with bleach at Sam's last week.
 
Actually, it's funny that you said that because I had a coupon for 16 ct cascade actions pacs (2 dollars off) so I bought the some with extra bleach action. Ran a full load today with a pac and some STPP and it did great. Funny. I was always under the impression that you could have bleach or enzymes but not both. The bleach version of cascade has enzymes as well as bleach. I thought enzymes were not compatible with bleach. Guess I was wrong.
 
IIRC, Cascade Defines "Bleach" as Oxygen Bleach

Could be wrong, but all the versions of Cascade "Hydroclean" and others I've seen on the shelves that have "bleach" on the label have listed on the back sodium percarbonate or some other oxygen based bleaching agent.

Some commercial versions of Cascade, sold for restaurant and others do contain chlorine bleach, but not enzymes.

You cannot have enzymes and chlorine bleach in the same formula, well it won't have any sort of stable shelf life anyway.

Chlorine bleach reeks havoc and destroys protein, which is one of the reasons it "kills" germs so well, and by the way is used in dishwasher detergents (certain foods like eggs, milk, etc contain protein).

If you mix chlorine bleach and enzymes together, the enzymes will be deactivated. This is why detergents containing the later have warnings on their packets about using the former later in the wash cycle when two are to be used together. Better yet LCB should be added to the first rinse as in most commercial laundries.
 
The aforementioned three year box of Cascade that I have is the institutional Cascade. I remember when I bought it at the certain Kroger I used to go to that it was the only powdered Cascade they had in stock. I remember thinking it was odd that they were selling institutional Cascade; it even had a picture of a restaurant dishwasher on the front of the box, but I bought it anyway....That box does not have enzymes in it and when I used it the other day running the dishwasher you can really smell the bleach. Funny I don't mind that smell at all; some people can't stand it. To me, it just smells clean ...The oxygen bleach seemed to do well with the STPP so I guess I will buy the action pacs with bleach and or the Powder with oxygen bleach from now on, since I don't see phosphate versions anywhere.

I think my main concern was what the non-phosphate detergents are doing to the dishwasher. For me it worked pretty good cleaning dishes and I didn't get the white film a lot of people reported, but the inside of the dishwasher was just stained with food since I had been using it and I had never seen that until I started using phosphate free. I was reading on a forum (can't remember where) and some technician says these phosphate free detergents seem more likely to gunk up......He said when he tears him apart they are a mess....He specifically stated the ones that were really bad were the people who had been using the phosphate free versions. I wonder how it gunks up at all with the super heated water? Sorry for the ramble....Way too much coffee
 
If I'm not mistaken, the chlorine bleach in older dw detergents (which have gotten very hard to find even before the phosphate ban), is chlorinated TSP (the simple form of phosphate). I gather that it's not 100% stable, and was the main reason why mfgs warned that the dw detergent should be used in a timely manner and not gotten wet, etc. Those cautions still apply to non-chlorinated dw detergents but it's my educated guess that they have a significantly longer shelf life without the powdered chlorine bleach in them.

It's interesting that various European nations tried banning phosphates from dw detergents but gave it up because of unacceptably poor cleaning results. Since Europe is usually at the forefront of environmental legislation, it makes me wonder if any of the American state legislators actually researched the issue prior to casting their fateful votes to ban phosphates.

What a debacle.
 
I know a few people who I have given some STPP to said that the first thing they noticed when using it was that the inside of their dishwasher sparkled like new.

I also noticed that when using STPP, I don't get those little black spots from acidic foods on stainless cutlery like I did without STPP.

I wonder if any of our wonderful legislatures are thinking about banning the sale of phosphates completely? Should we be stocking up on STPP too?
 
Cascade Ran Commercials

When their enzyme based (along with oxygen bleach), deterents hit the market showing housewives pulling faces, waving their hands in front of their noses and other depictions showing "disgust" with the heavy chlorine bleach scent from standard dw detergents. The appeal of new formula was an end to the dreaded bleach smell.

Many persons with breathing problems and or for other reasons cannot deal with chlorine bleach fumes, and often running a dishwasher meant not only filling the kitchen, but depending upon the layout of the home, an entire area with the smell of bleach. Many housewives waited until the last thing at night to run the dw(amoung other reasons), to start the dishwasher because at least the household would be upstairs or otherwise away from the wafting scent of bleach.

Myself never could stand the heavy scent of some chlorine based dw detergents. And as above, always ran the unit late at night when one was out of the kitchen area to escape that horrid smell.

Oh yes, not to mention the powerful bleach smell if one opened the dishwasher mid-cycle (to add an errant item), and all that hot bleach laden water/steam came gushing out.

Commercial dishwashers by and large do not run nearly long enough for enzyme based dishwasher detergents to really get going. Plus chlorine bleach (if the product is approved) in a detergent satisfies the "chemical sanitiation" part of most codes regarding using automatic dishwashers.

Chlorine bleach is cheap and common enough, which is why one most always finds it being used in restaurants and other places that serve the public. From dishwashing to the "rag" used to wipe down tables between servings, all one smells is bleach, bleach, bleach.
 
While I agree that chlorine bleach can get strong, when running the dishwasher, it's very faint, with just a hint of chlorine smell. Not like someone just sprayed the shower down with Tilex (that I can't stand) too strong.

That said, the chlorine bleach laden cascade made the inside of my dishwasher sparkle more so than the oxygen bleach Cascade combined with STPP.....Not enough to quibble over. Each night I have one glass of red wine and when putting the wine glass in the dishwasher, some red wine from the glass will drip down onto the door and the bottom of the tub. Those were the faded wine stains I was talking about, along with a couple of other stains I'm not sure about. When using the STPP with Cascasde, these were "almost gone" but not completely. I used 1 tbs of STPP........My next dishwasher hopefully will be stainless steel inside.
 
Well It Would, Wouldn't It?

Chlorine is a much more powerful oxidiser than oxygen based bleaching agents.

Many housewives that do not routinely use LCB, find every now and then some things simply need to be run through a wash with the stuff, regardless of how often they have been treated with oxygen bleach.

Ecolab and other commercial laundry product makers have what is called "reclaimer/destainer", which is basically a very strong chlorine bleach to deal with linens so stained that nothing is lost if they are bleached to within an inch of their life. Otherwise items are going to the rag bin for want of stubborn stain removal and or whitenss, so what is the loss goes the reasoning.
 
Launderess

I was under the impression that STPP would make the inside of the dishwasher stain free, regardless whether bleach was used or not. I thought that was one of the many wonders of the stuff.
 
Cascade with phosphates is still out there!!!

I ran around the neighborhood hoping that the Electrasol Finish powder and gelpacs I'm currently using hadn't gone to phosphate free yet as I was gonna stock up on it. Unfortunately it has. So I ran to Walgreens where they had the Cascade pacs phosphate free, but the Cascade powder with shine shield still had it. At $6.31 cents after tax for a 3.75 pound box I only bought one. Then I remembered Big Lots! so I went there. They have the same formula in the 6.25 pound box for $5. And the 4.75 pound box of Cascade with hydrobleach something powder for $6. I got 2 of the 6.25 pound boxes for just over $10. Still a little pricey compared to the Electrasol Finish powder now phosphate free which was $2.97 at Wal Mart, but I figured it was worth it. And I LOVE the Finish powder. Plus I found out that the Finish powder was 3.2% phosphate while the Cascade powder is twice that at 6.4%. And the Finish gelpacs were 8.7%. So if there is a Big Lots! in your area and you wanna stock up on Cascade powder with phosphate while you can. I say go for it and go for it soon!
 

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