Laundry detergent

Laundry detergent, washing powder, laundry powder, laundry liquid, are all names for chemical mixtures we put in our washing machine to clean our clothes. Our choice of product has an impact on our environment including the impact of those chemicals on our skin and lungs. Choosing a clean safe effective washing powder is as important as choosing a safe toothpaste or shampoo.

Your skin absorbs chemicals. That is how those nicotine patches work. There are many harmful chemicals that eat into our skin or soak through our skin into our bloodstream. The chemicals in your laundry detergent can remain in your clothes after the wash then mix with your perspiration and transfer to your skin where they might dissolve your skin, causing rashes, or soak through your skin to cause hidden damage.

Your lungs are your largest area of skin and are extremely absorbent. If you breath in the dust from laundry powder or the fumes from laundry liquids, your lungs will suffer. Lung damage is likely to occur from adults working in the manufacture of laundry products and in the children who enter your laundry then spill a powder or liquid all over themselves.

Fish have gills that are just as absorbent and they cannot escape the laundry chemicals that flow out into our river systems. When fish die, birds die through lack of food or through eating poisoned fish.

The wrong laundry detergent can have a long chain of impact on you, your family, friends, neighbours, people downstream, and out in the ocean.

Fillers

Fillers are cheap components designed to make the packet look bigger. Fillers add weight the you pay for because of the increased transport costs and the environment pays because that increased transport produces more carbon dioxide. The added size means everything has to be big and wasteful, the boxes, cartons, trucks carrying the cartons, shop shelves, and the bags you use to carry home the boxes.

Washing powder is padded out with fillers including sodium sulfate and sodium chloride. Some Web sites recommend you test for fillers by dissolving the washing powder in water then looking for an undissolved component. Sodium chloride and similar fillers dissolve without trace. There is no easy way to test for all fillers.

Laundry liquids are filled with water. A laundry liquid might be laundry powder diluted with 80 percent water. A concentrated laundry liquid is dilute laundry powder with less dilution.

Granular powder

Fine powder causes dust problems. Manufacturers of powders can easily create the powder as large granules that do not float in the air. Granulated powder is safer for everyone.

Powder or liquid

Laundry liquid is laundry powder mixed with water. You pay a lot of money for the water. The environment pays even more because of the carbon dioxide produced to transporting all that heavy water from manufacturer to the shop then to your house.

Some tests

• Planet Ark Aware Laundry Powder
  

  Read more about Planet Ark Aware Laundry Powder...