Tide Contains Dangerous Chemicals!

[tomturbomatic]

Sodium Hexametaphosphate is the chemical name of Calgon.

Washer111, many of today's dishwashers do not have timers that allow for adding an extra rinse, especially if you want it to go through the dry cycle. Where have you heard of people who wash dishes by hand and don't rinse them? Consuming that much detergent would pretty much give one constant diarrhea.

 

[sudsmaster]

Good luck finding Calgon these days with any phosphates in it. Most seems to have gone to Zeolites instead.

In any case, laundry phosphate, in the form of STPP, is exactly the same chemical that is added in vast amounts to many processed foods (and even toothpastes). It functions to help the foods stay moist. It is about as toxic as table salt. The difference between technical grade (the kind suitable for laundry) and food grade STPP is in purity.

Dioxane is a solvent used in extraction of other compounds in research and industry. It is nowhere near as toxic as dioxin, which as a contaminant of stuff like Agent Orange is blamed for a whole variety of health issues including cancer. I wouldn't ingest any Dioxane, either, but it's important not to confuse it with Dioxin.

Also, benzene and benzoate are two entirely different things. They are about as similar in toxicity as chlorine gas and sodium chloride.

 

[gorenje]

@ Tomturbomatic

Indeed some don't rinse dishes after washing them by hand.

People in Netherlands for example. But also some Belgians or even in the UK.

I don't know why. It seems odd to me.

 

[dj-gabriele]

Indeed some don't rinse dishes after washing them by han

Yeah, that's quite incredible! And very widespread in the UK and Belgium, at least to what I could see each time I was there!

 

[MrX]

I wonder how European detergents compare.

Persil's (Bio Powder) ingredients from their website (Unilver)

Ingredients - Functions
Sodium sulfate - Bulking Agent
Sodium carbonate - Builder
Sodium Dodecylbenzenesulfonate - Surfactant
Sodium Carbonate Peroxide - Oxidising Agent
Sodium Silicate - Builder
Aqua - Bulking Agent
Zeolite - Builder
TAED - Bleach Precursor
Citric acid - Builder
C12-15 Pareth-7 - Surfactant
Bentonite - Softness Extender
Stearic Acid - Surfactant
Parfum - Fragrance
Sodium Acrylic Acid/MA Copolymer -Structurant
Cellulose Gum - Anti-redeposition Agent
Corn Starch Modified - Enzyme Stabiliser
Sodium chloride - Process by-product
Tetrasodium Etidronate - Sequestrant
Parfum - Fragrance
Calcium Sodium EDTMP - Sequestrant
Disodium Anilinomorpholinotriazinylaminostilbenesulfonate - Optical Brightener
Polyethylene Terephthalate - Anti-redeposition Agent
Sodium bicarbonate - Builder
Phenylpropyl Ethyl Methicone - Antifoaming Agent
Cellulose - Binder
Calcium carbonate - Bulking Agent
Polyoxymethylene Melamine - Process by-product
Glyceryl Stearates - Emulsion Stabiliser
Butylphenyl Methylpropional - Fragrance
PEG-75 - Binder
Kaolin - Bulking Agent
Titanium dioxide - Colourant
Sodium Polyacrylate - Structurant
Imidazolidinone Process - by-product
Disodium Distyrylbiphenyl Disulfonate - Optical Brightener
Geraniol - Fragrance
Dextrin - Binder
Protease - Enzyme
Sucrose - Binder
Sorbitol - Enzyme Stabiliser
Aluminum Silicate - Anticaking Agent
Sodium Polyaryl Sulphonate - Process by-product
Lipase - Enzyme
Amylase - Enzyme
Xanthan gum - Process by-product
Hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose - Binder
CI 61585 - Colourant
Sodium Thiosulfate - Enzyme Stabiliser
CI 45100 - Colourant
Mannanase - Enzyme
CI 42090 - Colourant
CI 12490 - Colourant
CI 11680 - Colourant

 

[dirtybuck]

Oh Please!

I remember back in the '70's when Amway was trying to recruit new customers. they had their inane claims about brand name detergents (Tide being the most mentioned). According to them, most contained smashed up coconut shell particles and dried banana leaves and peels as fillers.

I don't know if the chemical mentioned in the article may relate to hand dish washing detergents, but I use different formulas of Palmolive. They are a bit harder to rinse off. More than once, I've noticed a lingering scent on my dishes, especially on plastic items.

 

[whirlcool]

The Chicken Little news networks strike again!!

My thoughts exactly. Everyone always tries to knock down the king of the block, in this case it's Tide. Even though other detergents have this same chemical (in lesser amounts) they are not mentioned.

Everyone wants to be like Tide.

 

[launderess]

IIRC

Calgon Powder - Mainly washing soda and Zeolites

Calgon Liquid - Mainly sodium citrate

Calgon long since removed phosphates from the powder when they merged production nationwide from one plant. Prior to this there were two versions, one with STPP and one without. You could tell which was which by looking for a "Z" in the product code printed on the box.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Calgon was originally Sodium Hexametaphosphate. If you look in older books of cleaning formulas, in the phosphate builders tables, you see sodium hexametaphosphate and "Calgon" in parentheses beside it. You can still buy hexa from the Chemistry Store. It softens water and helps rinse out detergents & soaps but is not as good at cleaning as STPP.

 

[launderess]

IIRC the original Calgon was a blend of both Sodium Hexametaphosphate and STPP, but then could be wrong, have go look it up.

While both phosphates are great they each bring something special to the party depending upon just how hard local water conditions were. By using two types the product pretty much covered all bases.

Calgon reached it's heyday and peak probably when so much of the United States and elsewhere depended upon steam power. Ships, locomotives, heavy construction equipment and so forth all had boilers for producing steam, and where you have that system you need water and hard water minerals can cause scale build-up.

Calgon's second use was for water softening in the era when soap was the main "detergent" for cleaning everything from laundry to dishes. Even vintage Lysol was soap based.

Laundresses and commercial laundries preferred phosphates over washing soda and or borax for reasons we know well today.

Until the "pollution" worries of the 1970's prompted detergent makers to switch builders, phosphates were also the main water softening agent in detergents as well.

 

[strongenough78]

It just seems like more and more of anything these days causes cancer. Everything from smoking to eating peanut butter. Gee whiz. I agree with a lot of the comments on here about these new "energy efficient" machines. People just pour in enough detergent for 3 or 4 loads causing everything to get poorly rinsed. Hell even with the proper amount used, everything is poorly rinsed. Pretty soon we're all going to have to go outside with gas masks attached to tanks of pure oxygen to keep from getting cancer from breathing. But then eventually, I'm sure they'll end up saying oxygen itself can cause cancer. It's a no win situation it seems. Everything we do seems to be a cancer risk. So I agree with nmassman44, if we're all going to go anyway, might as well go happy.

 

[washer111]

@tomturbomatic

In regards to people who don't rinse dishes, I can look at cooking classes at the local school. Only a single sink, full of water, with no place to rinse dishes. Simply dried and put away. No steam wash, no hygiene, no nothing. I'd avoid that class like the plague!

There would also be people such as farmers who don't have much rainwater, and save water by not rinsing, or just pouring a little water from the kettle on the dishes.

@strongenough78'

+1 to your statement! From stories told to me by others about their childhood, I've heard of lazy parents who use 1/4 of a box of washing machine detergent IN THE 70s! This created chafing and rashes for those concerned, due to poor rinsing machines then (or too much detergent).
Some people are just too lazy.

Finish 1.5kg double concentrate powder recommend 25g for any wash in the dishwasher (like the old Asko 1302 manuals), but F&P only recommend that much for a Heavy Wash (or fill the cup for hard water), so in effect, you waste 10g or so of detergent. We started using less since I saw the amount of suds the dish-drawer was producing with that amount, and because the manual recommends less

 

[launderess]

Rinsing Handwashed Dishes

By dipping them into a basin of "clean" water always bothered me as well.

Ok, maybe for a few dishes that water is clean but after a sinkfull that water probably contains tons of soap residue.

Am guessing pesons who used this and the "no rinse" method grew up and or learned housekeeping from those who lived through hard times. That or had little access to fresh running water thus had to make what was had last.

 

[arbilab]

I need to correct myself from above. Nasal sprays contain benzalkonium chloride, not sodium benzoate which is used in some foods and sodas. But really, you don't want ANYthing with "B-E-N-Z" in you or on you.

Dioxin is a spectrum of at least a dozen compounds with varying toxicity. The tetrachloros are the worst and set the equivalent-toxicity scale for the others. None are a component of detergents.

The Persil list above calls stearic acid a surfactant. That's patently wrong. It's anhydrous animal fat, a waxy powder. If you melt it and pour it into a mold with a wick, it makes candles. Stearic acid is a surfactant precursor. You'll find almost all shaving creams are stearic acid and triethanolamine which saponifies the stearic. Stearic/trieth (triethanolamine stearate, TES) was the basis of early commercial soaps just past the lye/lard stage. But seriously, would you wash clothes in shaving cream?

TES is the foundational surfactant of my skin lotion. It also uses diammonium phosphate, propylene glycol, and carbomer 940 as co-emulsifiers and stabilzers. One lab used sodium-hex instead of 940 but they made other mistakes so I found another lab.

 

[stan]

Persil List

Arbilab. I was waiting to see if anyone would catch that! Good for you! If you go thru that list again you'l catch another!

Also the list dose not tell us what the percentages ( by weight ) are.

 

[arbilab]

I differ with some of their functional definitions. And what the devil are 2 natural sugars and one artificial one doing in detergent? Not to mention putting calcium carbonate, the thing that makes hard water hard, in detergent for a hardwater market?

Polyethylene Terephthalate is what they made mylar recording tape out of. It's also what they make soda bottles out of because it's a better gas barrier than polypropylene or polyethylene. Most likely the packaging but erroneously included in the ingredients.

 

[stan]

LOL

Ur Good!

 

[arbilab]

Thanks, but only 'good' for a layman/amateur. I can't "swear" that Polyethylene Terephthalate has no sequestrant properties. There is more about surfactancy and sequestration that I DON'T understand than I do.

 

[stan]

I can't see that it is either?

Also can't see ordinary household laundry detergent requiring all these ingredients just to get textiles clean at home?
How many surfactants, water softening ingredients, and artificial perfumes are necessary? seems like a list of contradictions that Einstein could figure out.

P.S did you notice the Dextrin ??

 

[arbilab]

Dextrin was one of the sugars.

The formula for Tide HE (what I use) made much more sense to me. They don't put sugar, plastic, or water HARDENERS in it. OR BENZENES, which can be a health issue.

As an engineer I don't admire overwrought formulas or designs. And I'd call Persil one, though many Euros swear by it.