Fuzzy logic
Most advertisements project detergents as the ultimate dirt beaters. While detergents are facilitators, most cleaning action is actually done by water, the liquid solvent that not only dissolves dirt, but also provides a medium to suspend and carry it away from the surface. The transition from traditional natural cleaners such as clay, soapnut, ash, tamarind and even goat droppings to soap and detergents has been a game of manipulating chemistry.
Enter chemistry
Given time, water will clean and remove just about every type of dirt be it organic or inorganic. But time is the constraint and that's where detergents get in. They quicken the process of removing the dirt by tinkering with the properties of water and dirt.
Primarily, detergents break down surface tension, allowing water to quickly wet the cloth that's soaked in it. Modern detergents use surfactants to do the main cleaning job. Surfactants make water wetter, loosen, emulsify, hold dirt in suspension till rinsing and provide alkalinity to remove acidic dirt. They also produce foam to make it easier to scrub.
But modern detergents contain many more things than surfactants and are designed to deliver many more services than cleaning. They contain builders to soften hard water, fillers that make the detergent free flowing, bleaching agents and optical brighteners to make clothes white and bright, enzymes to break down biological stains such as blood, colouring agents to improve the appearance and fragrances to make the washed clothes smell nice.
Products in the west have features such as fabric softeners and anti-microbial elements to destroy pathogens. With these add-ons, detergents now arrive as a total consumer package. But this perceptible shift from a cleaning-specific role to additional feel-good and smell-good role has come at a heavy environmental price.
Lethal input
From Quick Wash to Stain Champion and Power Pearls to Spring Fresh, Indian consumers can access a dazzling range of specialised products. The detergents use different formulations. The special effects in most detergents nowadays are made possible by a host of chemicals. But little is known about all the constituents of detergents in the Indian market. What is known is that detergents contain 8 per cent to 18 per cent of surfactants and the most commonly used surfactant is Linear Alkyl Benzene (lab)