Sodium carbonate question?

[icleancarpetz]

Which products in our industry contain sodium carbonate?

 

[Living The Dream]

A lot of them. You should have copies of your SDS sheets.

 

[icleancarpetz]

A lot of them. You should have copies of your SDS sheets.

Oh thanks.
Which have sodium carbonate on your shelves?

 

[Mark Saiger]

Oh thanks.
Which have sodium carbonate on your shelves?

Our Code Red does....Harvard CitraZov Powder.....

Those are two coming to my head at this moment.

 

[icleancarpetz]

Ah alas....level head thinking. Thank you mark.
Any others?

 

[Tom Forsythe]

Most powdered products have STPP (sodium tri-polyphosphate) and sodium carbonate. Higher pH products have sodium metasilicate as well. The percentages in a formula are usually determined by cost with sodium carbonate (X cost/lb), sodium metasilicate (1.5 X) and STPP (4X). Low cost powdered products will use sodium carbonate as primary ingredient. Higher cost products will use STPP as primary ingredient. Powders with a lower pH (around 10) will have more STPP as sodium carbonate has a pH around 11. The amount of STPP in the formula will determine how easy it is to rinse out of carpet and off of tile. I consider Bio Break a free rinsing pre-spray based on the primary ingredient being STPP.

We only use sodium carbonate in a handful of liquid products (usually green). Sodium carbonate is considered "green" but STPP and other phosphates are not.

 

[BIG WOOD]

They’re green as long as you’re feeding the grass that recovery water

 

[Cleanworks]

Most powdered products have STPP (sodium tri-polyphosphate) and sodium carbonate. Higher pH products have sodium metasilicate as well. The percentages in a formula are usually determined by cost with sodium carbonate (X cost/lb), sodium metasilicate (1.5 X) and STPP (4X). Low cost powdered products will use sodium carbonate as primary ingredient. Higher cost products will use STPP as primary ingredient. Powders with a lower pH (around 10) will have more STPP as sodium carbonate has a pH around 11. The amount of STPP in the formula will determine how easy it is to rinse out of carpet and off of tile. I consider Bio Break a free rinsing pre-spray based on the primary ingredient being STPP.

We only use sodium carbonate in a handful of liquid products (usually green). Sodium carbonate is considered "green" but STPP and other phosphates are not.

Products with stpp are green seal certified. Are they not green. Is green seal certification just a joke?

 

[Tom Forsythe]

Phosphates are not considered environmentally "green" by third party certifications as they cause eutrophication in ponds, streams, lakes, etc. They act like fertilizer causing the algae to grow to the extent that they impact fish. However, this issue is less of a concern as there are now phosphate limits in laundry detergent and auto dishwashing detergent at .5% in the formula. This is the reason these detergents do not work as well as they did in the past. My household does 150 loads of dishes and laundry every year while we clean by extraction using phosphates once a year. You can see that the phosphate issues are less when 300 instances of cleaning in my household are essentially free of phosphate and 1 cleaning per year uses of phosphate. The last big area of concern for phosphates is fertilizer which can readily end up in rivers as a result of flooding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication Phosphates are among the safest in regards to human exposure as they have been used as food preservatives.

 

[Cleanworks]

My concern is with Procyon. It is green seal certified. I am aware of the eutrophication concerns with phosphates. Ironically, with the limits on phosphates in household products, we are now using phosphates to fertilize several lakes in our area to increase plant growth.

 

[Tom Forsythe]

https://www.epa.gov/saferchoice/safer-ingredients#searchList STPP the most used phosphate in powders does not show up on the list. We have worked with Green Seal and EPA DfE and it was clear from them that the level of phosphate used in our formulas did not qualify. They measure what is in the bottle, not the dilution used.

 

[Cleanworks]

https://www.epa.gov/saferchoice/safer-ingredients#searchList STPP the most used phosphate in powders does not show up on the list. We have worked with Green Seal and EPA DfE and it was clear from them that the level of phosphate used in our formulas did not qualify. They measure what is in the bottle, not the dilution used.

Thanks for the info Tom. So it seems in other words, that due to the level of phosphate in Procyon or similar products, it's still green.

 

[icleancarpetz]

Ive heard Procyon is little on the weak side?

 

[Cleanworks]

Ive heard Procyon is little on the weak side?

It's not the most powerful detergent in the world but it's all you need in most residential situations. For heavily soiled commercial carpets or trashed rentals, I use more powerful products such as Saigers Code Red. I get excellent results with Procyon Extreme and Plus Powder. It's a much safer product both for yourself and your customers.

 

[Tom Forsythe]

Our "soap free" competitor has 90% phosphate or 180 times above the phosphate limit in the bottle for Green Seal. However, sodium carbonate is 100% green. However, when you want free rinsing in a product, phosphate rules and sodium carbonate is a poor substitute. Phosphates also work well at high dilutions making it a perfect choice for powdered rinses. However, in a pre-spray the sodium carbonate has great value in providing alkalinity at a low cost. Phosphates cost 4 times more per pound than sodium carbonate. We do use both together in most formulas but from what I have observed we use more phosphate in our formulas than others.

 

[Cleanworks]

Green seal certified