Why is this not a surprise...I guess bans don't work well here.
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SPOKANE, Wash. – The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.

And thus began the hugely expensive and controversial "War on Soap," impacting the civil liberties of millions, and leaving many families torn apart, and thousands of non-violent offenders jailed, for acts of cleanliness.

I read about this a few days back. It's actually a ban on the sale of those detergents, not the purchase or possession of them. So people are just going over the border to Idaho or wherever and buying it there and bringing it back.

They're not breaking any laws.

I can understand this one...my wife and I try to be somewhat environmentally conscious, not because of any global warming panic, just because we think it's the ethical thing to do as Minnesotans who enjoy our great state. As part of that, we tried the "green" dishwasher detergents.

I would have had better results spitting on the dishes and rubbing them with a dirty sock. If companies want people to "go green", they've got to provide a useable alternative product! This applies to cars, light bulbs (although they are getting better), cleaners, fabrics (if you're interested, bamboo fabric is AWESOME, by the way), etc.

-Mark

Rumor has it, that your dog can lick the plates cleaner than 'green' dish soaps.

yet

There. Fixed it for you. The state legislature will no doubt add "possession of" tot he list of dishwasher detergent crimes.

Our keepers DO NOT like their laws ignored or circumvented.

jb

{edit: Please do NOT "fix" quotes. Please do NOT modify quotes. - PLB]

Yup. That's not allowed. It's generally done for benign reasons, but, even then, it's not allowed. The only person allowed to do it is me, and I never do it for benign reasons.

Good to know that if the recession makes me down-and-out, I can now turn to crime for a living, to wit, a detergent smuggler.

You'd really clean up in that racket

Insert barfing emoticon here....

ironbear, you cannot use language like "War on Soap" any more. That was rhetoric from the old administration. We now use the term "Soap Contingency Operation"

You should repent: 10 Our-Presidents, and 30 Hail-Obamas

You asked. I delivered.

I think Minnesota already has a "no phosphates in consumer soap" ban. At least, it was a legislative issue a few years ago. Ecolab, which sells soap, was all in a tither about it.

It's like the "no phosphates on lawn fertilizers" program, which is a related law in Minnesota. These bills are the result of a well debated political strategy to eventually reduce the phosphates in our waters. In reality, farmers dump this stuff by the truckload to fertilize fields, and then it does not even go through a treatment plant, it goes directly to the water. Probably only 1 % of phosphates will be regulated by this initial bill. Minnesota has a "no phosphates in your bag of lawn fertilizer", even though farmers can dump it by the trainload.


Industrial users are probably exempt in this bill, to keep their lobbyists out of it. (Consumers like us don't have lobbyists, and the government knows best people can get a little bill like this through. The beginning of a long political struggle.)

The next step will be to regulate phosphates at the municipal sewage treatment plants, as is already happening along the Minnesota River.

Finally, they will try regulating industry and farmers, and they can then argue that consumers already must comply with guidelines, others should as well. If that happens, it would really improve water quality, by not putting phosphorus in the water. But the initial laws will not do anything substancial, and will increase costs to consumers, and reduce cleaning efficiency and be more expensive.

The Brady bunch employs the same political strategy, (just a"common sense" regulation ). They know it won't help. Baby steps.

Don't ask why I know this.

I can't wait to flip on CNN and see a picnic on capitol building's lawn in Olympia followed by a "wash-in" of the dirty dishes using banned detergents...

perhaps they could chain themselves to dishwashers like Greenpeace used to do with drums of "toxic waste"?

The movement can go in the opposite direction. It happened with the previously Minnesota-banned colored margarine.

How well I remember the days when one of my Saturday tasks was to break that little pill of food coloring and mix it into the bag of pure white oleo margarine - the only type of margarine legally allowed in Minnesota at that time, and heavily taxed. Those days ended when my parents decided to become "criminals".

Roughly twice a year we left for a "smuggling" trip to Iowa to purchase a case of Fleischmann's margarine (my mother and father liked the ethnic implications of the name ). It is no joke that we traveled back roads to get home, hoping to escape police discovery of our 60 lbs. or so of contraband.

In 1963 our twice-yearly trips to St. Ansgar stopped. Minnesota finally allowed the sale of colored oleo, but still retained the onerous tax.

My point is that these "bans" can be reversed, or eliminated, by electing enlightened people who are not under the influence of those who appear to hate the very existence of human beings on this planet.