A Grandma J... DOCU
Laundry soap smugglers
"Green green, it's green they say on the far side of the hill...."
Yes, this is a green documentary. Grandma J may have a huge carbon footprint, but with her weekly pedicures, that should one day be a thing of the past. That's what Michelle #4 tells me, and since I get the ultra mega package deal, complete with hot rock massage and gangrene exfoliating, I'm gonna take her at her word....I'm a believer.
Enough about Grandma J's feet, I want to talk about dish washing detergents. Let's talk about the sales ban of dish washing detergents with phosphates. The City of Spokane Washington has outlawed the sale of such products because they pollute the waterways.
At first most Spokane-istas were fine with this...I mean who doesn't want clean lakes, rivers and streams? Who wants to catch a trout only to find that it tastes like phosphates? But, many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe's left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.
But it's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green.
As a result, there has been a quiet rush of Spokane-istas heading ten miles east on Interstate 90 into Idaho in search of old-school suds.
They stocks up on detergent at a Costco in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and most don't care who knows it.
"Yes, I am a smuggler, I'm taking my chances because dirty dishes I cannot live with." said one smuggler. In truth, the ban applies to the sale of phosphate detergent — not its use or possession — so no one is in legal trouble.
The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.
Some have taken to washing their dishes on the dishwasher's pots-and-pans cycle, which takes longer and uses five gallons more water. I wonder if that isn't as tough on the environment as phosphates.
So readers, in three hundred and forty words or less, tell me what would you do.
Would you travel ten miles to get the dish washing soap? How about using the pots-and-pans cycle? Hand wash?
Here are the words to the song Grandma J referenced at the start of this post. click on it to enlarge.
