OrganicBunny.com Living

The Dishwashing Detergent Test: How Clean is Clean?

You're in the cleaning aisle of the grocery store and you have less than 5 minutes to decide: do you want sparkly-clean dishes, care of big bad scary chemicals, or cloudy-looking dishes, care of products that are nice to the earth? What kind of choice is that? Why can't we have both, we wanted to know? Well, we took all those dirty dishes from our macaroni & cheese taste test and went out looking for the answer - and for the holy grail of dishwashing gels. Here's what we found:

Earth Friendliest: High Performance Wave Auto Dishwasher Gel, by Earth Friendly Products Cleanest Dishes: Mrs. Meyers Clean Day Automatic Dishwashing Liquid Lowest Price: Sparkling Clean Sunlight Gel

Earth Friendliest: OK, this was actually a little difficult to determine, because oddly, there are no labeling laws for these types of products (since they’re not considered "food"). So, we don’t really know what’s in some of these - especially the conventional products - which in itself is just scary. The natural & organic products do a better job in general of labeling, but even then, a little research is required to figure out what the big words mean, and how good or bad they are for you. Don’t worry; we did that part - and found out that the chemicals in Seventh Generation and High Performance Wave won’t hurt you or the environment. (Learn more about chemicals below)

Cleanest Dishes: You CAN have earth-friendly dishes and eat off them, too! Dishes from these tests were hands down the cleanest, AND the bottle claims to only contain all-natural, biodegradable ingredients - cool! We do have a reservation about this stuff, though: we did some research into the chemical ingredients and found out that this detergent contains lye. This extremely caustic chemical has always been a component of soap, so we understand why it’s in there, but that doesn’t make it harmless. Still, it’s the last ingredient on the list, which means it should only be present in very small amounts.

We have to give props to Mrs. Meyer’s products for their amazing scent, too. I felt like I was walking through a garden rather than cleaning the dishes - well, maybe that’s going too far, but take one whiff of these products and you will surely understand what I mean. If you don’t like any of the 3 scents she offers, though, this will be a bad thing, because you simply cannot ignore the "aromatherapeutic" odors. It’s like perfume for your dishes, and lingers on them for days.

Least Expensive: Looking for the cheapest detergent? Here’s your answer. It’s not surprising that the conventional product costs the least. We weren’t overly impressed by its cleaning abilities, but it does the job.

Other Notes: Seventh Generation says they’ve improved their formula and won awards for the effectiveness of their dishwashing detergent, but I’m sorry, guys - it still did not get my dishes really clean. The initial wash seemed fine, but over the course of many washes, we began to notice that the dishes just didn’t feel or look as clean as they used to. In fact, after using this detergent for a couple of weeks, we were grossed out: our glasses began to look cloudy and the water we drank out of them began to taste soapy. Seems to me that this detergent still doesn’t rinse well and that’s why we experienced the soapy buildup. Thankfully, though, Seventh Generation isn’t the only earth-friendly detergent out there, and the others performed better.

Methodology: We’d like to note that this was a test of dishwashing GELS or liquids, as opposed to powder. We used a traditional dishwasher and we did a fair job of rinsing the dishes before putting them in to be washed. We didn’t use any rinse aids or other stuff; just the straight detergent. Just for fun, we did two types of tests: one type with the auto-dry function on, and one with it off. And that did seem to make a difference. With auto-dry on, some detergents came out notably cleaner-looking. Enviro-note: it is recommended that you turn off the auto-dry function, or use it sparingly, because it takes a lot of energy to generate that heat. If you don’t mind wiping off dishes as you put them away, no problem. However, without auto-dry, you’re going to see more spots, so it may not be worth it if you’re washing a lot of glassware.

What's the big deal about phosphorus and chlorine, anyway? Why are they the bad guys? When we went out to research this topic, we found tons of info arguing both sides: from why chlorine is good (example: http://c3.org/) to why chlorine is bad: (example: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts172.html) - (amazing what you can find on the web these days).

Basically, it all boils down to this: it's not likely that the chemicals in your detergent are going to harm you (as long as you're not chugging the stuff, which would mean you have other problems, anyway). There are not enough of them in these cleaners, and you generally aren't exposed to them long enough. So what's the problem? The concern is what these chemicals do once they leave your house and go play in the great outdoors.

Chlorine likes to play in air or water, and mix with its other chemical buddies. Then it likes to do what it does best: kill stuff. We like it to do that when you're talking about killing germs on your dishes or clothes, but that's not such a good thing when you're talking about killing fish or animals in their natural habitat. See the problem?

Phosphates, on the other hand, like to play in surface water, where they do the opposite of killing stuff: they encourage stuff to grow. Unfortunately, the stuff they encourage to grow are algae blooms and duckweed. These little plants prevent sunlight from entering the water, and use up so much oxygen that they make the water unlivable for other organisms (fish, other plants, etc).

So while they may not hurt you directly while you're scrubbing up after dinner, chlorine and phosphates may go out and beat up on other organisms when you're done with them. That's why people want to try to clean their dishes (and laundry) with chemicals that aren't as dangerous to the environment as a whole.