Calling It a Wash
Photo by Jutta Klee/Getty Images
From PlanetSave.com: “Sludge recycling sends antiseptic soap ingredient to agriculture.”
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health measured levels of an antibacterial hand soap ingredient, triclocarban, as it passed through a wastewater treatment facility. They determined that approximately 75 percent of the ingredient washed down the drain by consumers persists during wastewater treatment and accumulates in municipal sludge, which later is used as fertilizer for crops. Their findings are presented in a study appearing in the online and print editions of the journal Environmental Science & Technology. More studies are underway to determine if triclocarban, which is toxic when ingested, can migrate from sludge into foods, thereby potentially posing a human health risk.
[via Path to Freedom]
In other words, 75 percent of the antibacterial toxicant you get in sanitizing hand soap sloshes down the pipes, only to survive wastewater treatment essentially unchanged. The municipal sludge that results is recycled as fertilizer for crops, and so, like the stalker ex-boyfriend you can’t get rid of, the synthetic toxin finds a way around that restraining order to get REALLY up close and personal. Like, in-your-gut personal. “Following its intended use as a topical antiseptic, we are effectively and inadvertently using it as an agricultural pesticide that is neither regulated nor monitored,” says senior author Rolf U. Halden, PhD, assistant professor and co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Center for Water and Health.
Plus, the Center for Disease Control is concerned that our casual use of antibacterial products is breeding drug-resistant bacteria that’s also cross-resistant to antibiotics, especially since we don’t have evidence that antibacterial soap is any more effective than plain, old fashioned soap.
(A related post on antibacterial sponges can be found here.)
Get next to godliness with bars of soap instead of liquid shower gel you have to pump out of a plastic bottle. Soap bars, especially the handmade artisan variety, use significantly less packaging than their liquid brethren. Remember to check your potential purchase against the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep site for hazard scores of popular brands before you buy, while examining the fine print to determine if your soap’s made of all-natural ingredients that won’t pollute your body or our rivers and streams.
Liz said,
April 30, 2006 at 8:27 am
I think most people are unaware how unnecessary anti-bacterial hand soaps really are. A lot of bacteria are “good bugs” that outnumber the bad. Anti-bacterials kill EVERYTHING, good and bad alike, leaving us more vulnerable to the bad guys who can become resistant. Give me that good old bar of handmade soap anyday!
Jasmin said,
April 30, 2006 at 11:03 am
(Reposting from my response e-mail, in the interest of full disclosure of my own former ignorance.)
Yes, definitely. I mean, I have a degree in biology but I didn’t even think about the impact of antibacterial chemicals until I was doing research about my dish sponges in February! (I think my thought process usually went, “Ooh, kills germs. RAWK!”) This is definitely a subject that doesn’t get too much play in the mainstream media.
So I still have an inch of Dial liquid soap in my bathroom, but the bottle will be tossed into recycling in exchange for a regular bar of soap when we’re done.
The Worsted Witch » Maybe Baby said,
May 10, 2006 at 12:18 am
[...] 3. Phase out your use of household chemicals, antibacterial disinfectants, and synthetic pesticides. According to various studies, exposure to household pesticides is associated with an elevated risk of childhood leukemia and childhood brain cancer. [...]