29/01/2025
Why choose phosphate free detergents?
What are phosphates and why do we worry about them?
A switch by consumers to phosphate-free detergents could lead to significant improvements in our waterways which are increasingly threatened by phosphate pollution.
Phosphates are chemical compounds containing phosphorus (a naturally occurring mineral) and oxygen, as well as other minerals, such as calcium and sodium. Crucial for plant growth and development, it is estimated that half the world’s food supplies rely on phosphate fertilisers. However, phosphates also affect water quality.
Phosphate pollution in streams, rivers and other waterways leads to big blooms of algae that swamp aquatic plants and starve fish and other water creatures of oxygen. Phosphates feed the algae, which grow out of control, creating imbalances that destroy other life forms and produce harmful toxins.
Phosphate leads to widespread pollution
Excess phosphates create water that's cloudy and low in oxygen. All plants need phosphates to grow, but too many of them in water results in algal blooms which reduce the sunlight available to other plants. When the algae and other plants then die, the bacteria that breaks them down uses the available oxygen in the water, suffocating other aquatic life.
According to the WWF, each kilogram of phosphorus that reaches the sea can produce up to 500 kilograms of algae. As an example quoted on their site, phosphates from detergents are estimated to have contributed between 9 and 24 percent (or 3,000-6,000 tonnes per year) of all anthropogenic phosphorus in the Baltic Sea.
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