WASHINGTON — A recent study reviewing five decades’ worth of research shows that high-volume use of major detergent ingredients has no adverse environmental impacts to waterways and rivers, according to a paper co-authored by the American Cleaning Institute (ACI), as well as other authors, including those from the government, academic and other sources, such as laundry detergent manufacturer Procter & Gamble.
The research was published in Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology (Volume 44, Issue 17, 2014), a peer-reviewed journal. The article, titled Environmental Safety of the Use of Major Surfactant Classes in North America, pulls in more than 250 published and unpublished articles on the “environmental properties, fate and toxicity” of the four major surfactant classes, according to ACI.
Surfactants are the working ingredients in many detergents and cleaning products. The four major classes studied were alcohol sulfate (AS), alcohol ethoxysulfate (AES), linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), alcohol ethoxylate (AE) and long-chain alcohol (LCOH).
“We looked at the surfactants’ physical and chemical properties, environmental fate properties, such as biodegradation and sorption, monitoring studies through sewers, wastewater treatment plants and eventual release to the environment, aquatic and sediment toxicity, and bioaccumulation information,” says Kathleen Stanton, ACI director of Technical & Regulatory Affairs, and one of the paper’s co-authors.
ACI adds, “though surfactants studied are used in very high volumes and widely released to the aquatic environment, the review paper reports that prospective and retrospective risk assessments demonstrate that ‘they have no adverse impact on the aquatic or sediment environments.’”
The full report is available here.
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