I am so glad to find this forum as I am entirely on my own to plan and design multiple permaculture sites in the Philippines so I hop people here like answering questions. I am starting with a 5,000 square meter lot on a hilltop where I will have a house built and a 10,000 square meter beach front lot where I will have a beach house. I have some books by Bill Mollison and he suggests putting a shower in the center of a coconut/banana circle so I guess soap and shampoo won't hurt the plants. I am thinking of a second circle that would have water etc for laundry but would laundry detergent be a problem for the plants?
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Get a complete list of ingredients of your detergent from the manufacturer. Many contain a lot of salt- NaCl2, even ones with nice sounding, green marketing names.
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Thanks I will check. Is salt the only ingredient I would need to worry about?
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Phosphates are also in detergents; these are highly reactive element/chemicals and some plants-like Australian natives -don't like them. There are all sorts of funny ingredients in washing powders like whitening agents etc. Who knows what they do. The effects could be good with some plants! Bacteria use detergents that they excrete to eat (we think). So what will be the effect of you tossing detergent on them? Who knows? Soil chemistry and especially biology seems a most neglected aspect of science. Some Phosphate/soil chemistry https://www.extension.umn.edu/distributi ... C6795.html An interesting chemistry book that may be in an agricultural schools library https://books.google.com.au/books?id=gAQ ... ry_s&cad=0 https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en& ... GzfaTEMxsI These people claim their detergent is safe https://products.planetark.org/paproducts/greywater.cfm Like most, they trumpet what is not in their product but it is much harder to find a list of ingredients that are in their product on their website https://products.planetark.org/paproducts/aware.cfm This gentleman does not agree https://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/papers/P42-chem2.pdf. This conference article may help you https://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:RaQ ... clnk&gl=au I found this old (2002)SMH article interesting https://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/ ... 03607.html i always worry when Big Companies say "perfectly legal". these are some proposed 'grey water protocols' that the CSIRO published last year. https://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:XrM ... clnk&gl=au While Australia mostly has 'soft' water and therefore does not need the many additives like salt, contained in European and many USA dish-washing and laundry detergents I suspect it is not worth a Multi-National Company's time to change a detergent formulation just for the tiny Australian market. Most are probably made offshore anyway.
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Wow, So much info. Thank you. I will go through this in detail but at first sight it looks like its better to avoid the stuff rather than encourage pouring it over the compost.
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles We have been watering our house plants with dish washing grey water, without any noticeable counter-effect on the plant's health. I have refrained of using it to water edible plants, though. Would that be OK?
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Almost everything will be edible so I decided not to take a chance on grey water use. I may still have the house plumbing done so water from showers, washbasins, kitchen sinks, etc can easily be redirected to a grey water filter bed if we have water supply problems in the future.
Re: Will laundry detergent harm plants in coconut/banana circles Skywoolf, https://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/ has a good discussion of basic greywater issues, and has formally tested 30-40 (Australian) brands of detergent for sodium & phosphorus content levels. Results table can be downloaded from https://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/overview.htm Hamish