Friday, October 29, 2010

Video Watch List, Gripe With Big Detergent

Before getting into surfactants and detergents, here are some must see videos that are easily accessible on the net - two from U-Tube and two from TED.
From U-TUBE:
1.  Arithmetic, Population & Energy,  A Lecture by Dr. Albert A Bartlett, Physicist, University of Colorado, Boulder, subtitled, "The Most Important Video You'll ever See"  very easy, useful math that everyone needs to know
2. "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See"  WonderingMinds42 (3 million views)
It doesn't matter if you believe global warming is man made or not.  The logic dictates only one choice - take every action you can to stop it
From  TED:
3.  Sylvia Earle's "Ted Wish" (more on this below)
4.  Ray Anderson's - "The Business Logic of Sustainability"  - (more below)

Whether you're an environmentalist or not, you will finds these talks enlightening.   They are related and I think by somehow combining the thoughts and solutions of these four people, the world might get a little closer to slowing down or even averting the cataclysmic environmental disasters looming before us.
Perhaps you're already familiar with TED but if not, this site offers a couple of hundred  20 minute presentations on  the latest from Technology, Education and Design , where the acronym comes from.  Other talks are offed as well, including many on the environment.   Start with Sylvia Earle's Ted Wish  (TED Link).    Her message is both shocking and inspiring.   Two things I found jaw-dropping were: 1).  Over the last 50 years, 90% of big fish in the ocean have disappeared (no mention of surfactants, after all she only had 20 minutes, commercial fishing is the main culprit here), and 2.) and the time frame to save the ocean is only about the next 10, maybe 20 years.  If we don't save the ocean, the Earth may one day look like Mars.   It was inspiring because she is able to speak with passion about her passion, the ocean.  Inspiring also to see that one person can make a difference, she was able to achieve her TED wish and is getting the word out to you and me. She also has a suggestion on how we can save the ocean, and it is worth hearing.  Sylvia's talk is just one among many on marine ecology which go beyond just being informative, it was eye opening and enlightening.     

Ray Anderson is the founder and now chairman of Interface, a producer of carpet tiles and other flooring products.   He is described in TED's introduction as  "The Greenest CEO in America" and noted for his efforts to make his corporation environmentally-neutral by 2020.   It is remarkable that a "captain of industry" would state that someday people like himself, might find themselves in jail, in jail for their roles as "plunderers of the Earth", an Earth that may become uninhabitable if we all don't join NOW in the effort to make it better.   His main point is corporations are mainly to blame for the precarious state of today's environment, and  business and industry is the only entity big enough to get us out of this mess.  He may be right but will the corporate leaders get the message in time?

Gripe with Big Detergent

Which brings me back to my gripe against today's laundry detergent makers.   Surfactants in laundry detergents have been poisoning our waters and contaminating our bodies for the last 60 years.  Studies after studies has confirmed this.  Yet, for 50 years, detergent makers have insisted that surfactants are necessary to make an effective laundry cleaner, they are not that bad, and, there was no alternative.   Regulators and the public bought into this propaganda, and today, we are seeing the consequence of having released millions of tons of surfactants into our waterways year after year for 60 years, waters filled with toxins killing and mutating fish and other water species.   Surfactant chemists have known from the very beginning the danger of the substance, but 60 years ago, who cared?  Who could have forecast the growth of its use, the magnitude of damage?   If anyone could have, it would have been big detergent.

The Toxicity of LAS Has been known for 50 Years

Looking more at surfactants over the last couple of days,  I found out this:   LAS has been used in laundry formulations  since the late 50's, early 60's.  I  was under the mistaken impression that LAS was a relatively newer, somewhat less damaging surfactant.  It turns out it's not. Nearly from the very start of LAS's inclusion as a laundry detergent surfactant, scientists began finding that LAS indeed is very harmful; deadly for water-living species.   Studies like "Biological Effects of Surface Active Agents on Marine Animals" done in 1971, quotes articles done on the subject from the mid 60's.   These studies are very clear on the effects of surfactants like LAS.  When LAS is put into water at concentrations ranging from 1 ppm to 100ppm, crustaceans, bivalves and fish(es) all died.   The most sensitive were the crustaceans' whose "first reaction to the surfactants is increased activity (avoidance reaction of mobile species), followed successively by inactivity, immobilization and death."  This was also true for the bivalves and fish they studied, although at little higher concentrations.
Now, when these studies were first put out, who really paid that much attention to this stuff ?   Not me, but you know the product development people working at big detergent makers knew about these studies, surfactant chemists must have read through the reports, and science reporters wrote enough about detergents that at least allowed most of us to hear about the inherent dangers of laundry detergents and other household cleaners. It's clear now that while we heard, we really didn't pay much attention, it is the second biggest selling surfactant for laundry detergents in the US, an holds closer to a 20% share in both Europe and Japan.

 Could Alcohol Ester Sulfonates Be Worse than LAS?

In my last blog, I pointed out that according to a reputable research firm's report done this year (You can buy it for $4,300), the most used surfactant for laundry detergents in the US is alcohol ester sulfonates, which again holds about a 30% share.   Take a look at the summary of one toxicity study:
"Sulfonate esters of lower alcohols possess the capacity to react with DNA and cause mutagenic events, which in turn may be cancer inducing.   Consequently, the control of residues of such substances in products that may be ingested by man (in food or pharmaceuticals) is of importance to both pharmaceutical producers and to the regulatory agencies."

"Alcohol ester sulfonates" and  "sulfonate esters of lower alcohols" has got to be the same, right?  Now, if you shouldn't ingest it, should you be washing your clothes in it, letting it permeate into your underwear, underwear that is touching your skin for long stretches at a time?   Remember, one of the main attractions of surfactants for chemists is this substance's ability to penetrate surfaces, including your skin.  

But before we sue the detergent makers, let me quote the rest of the summary, which really confuses the issue for me.

  "The study definitively demonstrates that sulfonate esters cannot form even at trace level if any acid present is neutralized with even the slightest excess of base.  A key conclusion from this work is that the high level of regulatory concern over the potential presence of sulfonate esters in API sulfonate salts is largely unwarranted and the sulfonate salts should not be shunned by innovator pharmaceutical firms as a potential API form.   Other key findings are that (1) an extreme set of conditions are needed to promote sulfonate ester formation, requiring both sulfonic acid and alcohol to be present in high concentrations with little or no water present; (2) sulfonate ester formation rates are exclusively dependent upon concentrations of sulfonate anion and protonated alcohol present in solution; and (3) acids that are weaker than sulfonic acids (including phosphoric acid) are ineffective in protonating alcohol to catalyze measurable sulfonate ester even when a high concentration of sulfonate anion is present and water is absent. " 
There's a bit more in this summary but I think you probably have the same question I have:   "What is the conclusion?  Is my detergent safe or not?"  If you think you know, please submit your comments. 
The article was written by Mr. Andrew Teasdale, AstraZeneca, R&D
Publication Date (Web): Mar. 10, 2010
Copyright    2010 American chemical Society

Googling "alcohol ester sulfonates" really doesn't produce that many hits.   I couldn't even find safety data on this compound.   Strange.


60 Years and Detergent Makers Still Haven't Developed Anything Safer!?

What is disheartening about all this is people responsible for making and selling these products did little or nothing to improve the safety of the stuff they sell.  We are basically using the same cleaning agents (surfactants) LAS, AE and EO as 50 years ago.  A few surfactants have been restricted and banned, surfactants like ABS (this was blamed, along with phosphates for helping to create all that foam and scum back in the 1960's, and more recently as either an environmental estrogen or a substance that raises environmental estrogen).   For nearly 50 years, detergent formulators have known that the surfactants used in their products kill fish and just about everything else living in water.   And, while detergent makers and regulators were generally perceived to be hard at work attempting to fix the problem, the reality was very little effort was put into finding a safer surfactant.  And, I suspect that's why we're starting to see mutations like inter-sexed fish throughout US waterways.      
We are left wondering why nothing much has changed.   The following are three suppositions:

1.  Everyone really believed the surfactants in use were unavoidable and necessary
2.  The makers need to maximize profits, they have to keep their raw material costs down
     (although I have no access to price lists, the literature I read suggests these surfactants
      are all very cheap, the cheapest way to make a detergent)
3.  The quiet, satisfied consumer, not knowing or caring about detergent safety issues

I would say the first is simply not true so we're left with 2 and 3 - detergent makers desire to keep costs down (justified by keeping prices low for consumers), and consumer lethargy - "it gets my clothes clean, that's all I need to know."

The first guess is inconceivable to me for the following:  Detergent makers all know about truly natural compounds like guar that can be used in formulations.   These makers will say they don't use it because it doesn't match the cleaning power of surfactants and consumers will not buy it.   Well, how do they know if they don't give us the choice?  They should at least try and put a safer product on the market and see.  My bet is it will be bought by the informed consumer.  Second reason is, if a small water research company in Japan can come up with what looks to be a much safer solution to get our clothes clean, why couldn't the detergent companies with their much larger R&D budgets, come up with something?   I just can't resist pointing out here P&G's R&D budget for last year;  $2 billion. (As a side note, this number is dwarfed by their advertisement expenditures, a staggering $8.5 billion.  They are number 1 in the world in this.  No. 2 spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 billion)  Granted, P&G sells a lot of different kinds of products that add up to $78 billion in total sales and R&D is done in many different areas.   But, laundry detergent sales account for somewhere between 10 and 20% of their total.  I would think they could have easily earmarked $100 million or so, in an effort to find a safer detergent formula, one that could at least cut back on the amount of surfactants found in their products.  Remember, P&G has spent huge sums on R&D for the last 40 years and should have been able to come up with something.  They haven't and furthermore, aren't liquid detergents much more popular these days than powdered detergents?   Aren't more surfactants found in liquid detergent formulas than in powdered detergent, perhaps by a factor of two?   Boy, instead of trying to decrease their reliance on surfactants, it seems they are increasing it.  Who created the demand for liquid detergents?   Are liquid detergents really that much more convenient than powders?  They've been spending big money on research for the last 50 years and we're still using essentially the same surfactants as 50 years ago and, per wash, more of it.   What's really going on in the research and development department of these companies? While you and I assume they are trying to find better products, including products that are safer for us consumers, it seems they are much more interested in researching products that will add to their bottom line.   Every one realizes company have to make money, but they must do so in a socially and environmentally responsible way, don't sell harmful products.  P&G's reliance on damaging surfactants in their laundry formulations needs to be challenged.   Last year, P&G along with other big detergent makers were sued by Earthjustice on the behalf of a coalition comprised of the Sierra Club, New York Lung Association, and Women for the Earth (along with a few other groups).   The purpose of the suit was to force P&G and other detergent makers to provide ingredient lists for their cleaning products, including laundry detergent.  This is the first challenge.   It will be interesting to see how the court rules.

Looking over P&G's latest annual report and the message by the CEO, I didn't find a whole lot on the company's stand on environmental issues.  There is something on "sustainability" in there, but "Sustainable for who?" might be a good question to ask at their next shareholder's meeting.  They definitely haven't heard Ray Anderson's message or if they have, is choosing to ignore it.  To put it mildly, this is all pretty upsetting and makes one question why we don't hear much about this but I guess you have to believe spending $8.5 billion in ads can get you a lot of good will.  Wasn't P&G ranked at number 6 on the list of America's Most Respected companies?

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