When I am young i love watching white bubbles in my mom washing machine, i can sit around and watch it forever. But now I just sudden noticed my washing machine doesn’t make that bubbles anymore. And I am can’t even remember which time that phenomena disappeared.
So what is changed, and can I do something to make it happen again?
In: Technology
A couple of things have changed. First, since housewives mostly no longer watch their clothes being washed, there is lesser demand for bubbles, which consumers associate with cleaning. Second, detergents work well enough without suds, which have no effect on cleaning power.
Washing detergent used to have phosphates in it which created the bubbles.
The problem with phosphates is they are thought to feed algae in rivers etc, the algae becomes so big that it takes too much oxygen from the water, which destroys the ecosystem (suffocating fish and causing lots of death which pollutes the water).
There is a little contention there because phosphates are also used in farm fertiliser, so it’s unclear if runoff from farms was doing it instead and still is, or both were responsible.
So Europe and parts of the US and other countries banned phosphates in washing detergent, and now you don’t get as many bubbles. With that said some brands are still using them when they’re not meant to.
So you could switch detergents depending on your state.
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