Dishwasher Not Working? Blame the Government!

Noticed that the dishes don’t seem to get as clean lately?  Here’s why:

Excerpts from an article in the New York Times:

“My dishes were dirtier than before they were washed,” one angry consumer  wrote last week in the review section of the Web site for the Cascade line of dishwasher detergents. “It was horrible, and I won’t buy it again.”

“This is the worst product ever made for use as a dishwashing detergent!” another consumer wrote.

Like every other major detergent for automatic dishwashers, Procter & Gamble’s Cascade line recently underwent a makeover. Responding to laws that went into effect in 17 states in July, the nation’s detergent makers reformulated their products to reduce what had been the crucial ingredient, phosphates, to just a trace.

While phosphates help prevent dishes from spotting in the wash cycle, they have long ended up in lakes and reservoirs, stimulating algae growth that deprives other plants and fish of oxygen.

Yet now, with the content reduced, many consumers are finding the new formulas as appealing as low-flow showers, underscoring the tradeoffs that people often face today in a more environmentally conscious marketplace. From hybrid cars to solar panels, environmentally friendly alternatives can cost more. They can be less convenient, like toting cloth sacks or canteens rather than plastic bags or bottled water. And they can prove less effective, like most of the new cleaning products.

Phosphorus in the form of phosphates suspends particles so they do not stick to dishes and softens water to allow suds to form.

Now that the content in dishwasher detergent has plummeted to 0.5 percent from as high as 8.7 percent, many consumers are just beginning to notice the change in the wash cycle as they run out of the old product.

“Low-phosphate dish detergents are a waste of my money,” said Thena Reynolds, a 55-year-old homemaker from Van Zandt County, Tex., who said she ran her dishwasher twice a day for a family of five. Now she has to do a quick wash of the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher to make sure they come out clean, she said. “If I’m using more water and detergent, how is that saving anything?” Ms. Reynolds said. “There has to be a happy medium somewhere.”

Similarly, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., that helps women form environmentally minded cooperatives and trains house cleaners, says their employers have often resisted switching to the new cleaning products.

“There’s the myth that to be clean it has to shine or smell or make a lot of bubbles,” said Ivette Melendez, one of the trainers for the group, Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security. She says products like vinegar, baking soda or the newer cleansers work just as well as traditional items if applied in the proper mix and quantities.

But Jessica Fischburg, a commerce manager in Norwich, Conn., for CleaningProductsWorld.com, which sells janitorial supplies in bulk, said she was not surprised that many of her clients rejected products marketed as environmentally friendly.

“The reality of any green product is that they generally don’t work as well,” she said. “Our customers really don’t like them.”