You don’t have to search far to find someone claiming that surfactants — chemicals used in soaps, shampoos and detergents to help wash dirt away — are dangerous toxins that are harmful for the environment.
But after conducting what this researcher says was the biggest study on the environmental impacts of surfactants, the evidence shows otherwise. Hans Sanderson examined around 250 studies dating back to the 1950s, and says we can now consider surfactants not only safe for the environment, but safer than other toxic chemicals.
The reason for this is in how surfactants biodegrade. Thanks to innovations both in the chemistry of cleaning products and in wastewater treatment, the biodegradability of surfactants means that the surrounding environment will receive much lower concentrations of the chemicals. What’s more, if another toxic chemical is less biodegradable, the concentrations of it in the environment will be higher, meaning that it could be more threatening to the ecosystem.
Sanderson’s other important conclusion for policymakers is that regulations for cleaning products should be based not on the toxicity of chemicals used in them, but in how well they biodegrade.
Video by Reuters Plus.