Talk:Phosphates in detergent

Content merged here
There were multiple Wikipedia articles which discussed phosphates in detergent. To start this article, I copypasted content from the following articles to this one.



I checked these articles for relevant content and did not see anything that was backed with citations and that seemed good for me to bring in.
 * Tributyl phosphate
 * Disodium phosphate
 * Phosphoric acids and phosphates
 * Phosphorus

Once all of this content was here, I copyedited it, wikified it, and added some new content. Then I published this as its own article. After this, I deleted the content from the original articles and directed all presentation of the concept to this article as the central information source.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  19:54, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

By region
Discussion about phosphate pollution and proposed bans happened from ~1955-2010s. These discussions happened at state and national levels in many places repeatedly in many times. In the end the European Union issued bans covering many countries and the United States for example had some national bans, but there are smaller stories about bans and regulation at smaller levels. If a region had multiple discussions from multiple sources at multiple times, then there could be a Wikipedia article about that discussion, like Regulation of phosphates in detergents in the United States or for any other such place. A lot of content is available.

Discussions that seem to happen repeatedly are industry backed calls to not regulate this, scientific perspectives, confused consumer perspectives that call for no ban but hardly seem aware of environmental impact, and informed consumer advocate positions in which all views are acknowledged. I am not aware of any "pro-phosphate" perspective published anywhere that acknowledges the environmental impact reports and yet still advocates for more phosphates in the water, but there is a regional narrative for every regulation process. If anyone wanted to make more regional articles there is room for that here.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:41, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Laundry versus dishwashers
It seems like laundry was the original bigger problem, but phosphates in laundry seems to have been banned in the 1980s in many places. By the time of later washing machine detergent bans in the 90s or 2000s, there was Internet based journalism so I find lots of stories about that. I expect that laundry phosphate bans are in paper sources and less accessible online.

If there is any all-seeing narrative which talks about both the state of laundry and dishwasher detergent bans, then I have not found this source. It probably is the case that this Wikipedia article is the most comprehensive general overview of the concept.  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  17:41, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Australia began to phase out phosphates starting 2011...
That's what the reference says, so it's right for Wikipedia.... but, actually, it's complete balony: Australia started phasing out phosphates in the 60's or 70's, when it first became an issue. All the big brand washing powders switched to low-phosphate or almost-zero-phosphate formulations at that time. In 2011 Australia introduced new legislation to finish phasing phosphates out of laundry detergents, a process made easier by the fact that none of the major brands contained any significant phosphate content at that stage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.206.162.148 (talk) 08:40, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Can you identify any published source for this?  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:38, 17 June 2019 (UTC)