Home-made laundry detergents?

[Greg O'Rourke]

Greetings!

I am currently trying to do a bit of searching as to a simple home-made laundry detergent that would be compatible for greywater disposal on soil. Most of the recipes that I've found off the Internet etc involve various proportions of sodium carbonate & pure soap. However I've recently read in 'Create an Oasis with Greywater' that sodium compounds are nasty for the soil.

Can anyone help with a recipe that wouldn't do any damage to the soil? No need for any fragrance additives or anything. I've also tried just hanging clothes to air on the line for a day, and also washing with water only - both very effective btw, but those techniques don't quite do for dirt-laden gardening clothes/greasy overalls etc... ;-)

Any ideas would be most welcome!

Cheers,

Greg O'Rourke
Canberra, Australia

[oasis]

You could try a combination of:

Ionic surfactant
Non-ionic surfactant
Potassium Tri-poly Phosphate

The liquid and powder parts would be added seperately to the washer.


This should pack a good punch as a laundry detergent, and be a good fertilizer as well.

These are ingredients you'd buy, not make.
I don't know about sources.

Good luck,

Art

[SW2fiddler]

I like that it would contain phosphate! No currently for-sale cleaner seems to...

Has anybody found sources for any of the suggested components?

Cheers,
Rick

[kevinrs]

there's a reason you don't see phosphates much in detergents: pollution. it gets into the waterways and lakes, and fertilizes the algae way too much, the fish die, etc.

[oasis]

Kevinrs,

Ecological Design = Doing what makes sense in the context.

Phosphates in water= bad

Phosphates on land, in reasonable concentration, = good

[SW2fiddler]

Found the following source for "Potassium Tripolyphosphate
Pentapotassium Triphosphate; Potassium Triphosphate "

Sciencelab.com who turn out to be in my city!

I am looking into the feasibility of using Suave Shampoo as the liquid component, as it seems to consist largely of surfactants, and only one sodium ingredient lower down in the list.

Comments/caveats are extremely welcome at this point.

Rick