The laundry soap itself is attached to a substrate, which you can see above, and is made of PVA or polyvinyl alcohol. PVA is a water soluble synthetic polymer. It’s a plastic, yes, but it has properties which should allow it to fully degrade. We don’t know enough about PVA and its effects on humans and the environment because it has been deemed safe by the EPA. But it has been detected in human breast milk, so yeah, it’s everywhere. PVA is used for contact lenses, food packaging, textiles, paints and paper.
If the power sheet had dissolved in my washer, on warm I should add, I wouldn’t be here writing about polyvinyl alcohol and laundry soap.
Bottom Line
I won’t be purchasing the power sheets again for a few reasons. They don’t seem to fully dissolve in my washing machine so I am wasting energy, time, water and money using them. While PVA seems relatively safe, it’s still a plastic that may not get fully dissolved in the environment.
From the Plastic Pollution Coalition:
But a close look at research on PVA/PVOH and the EPA’s generous criteria for “safe” standards shows that PVA/PVOH is not verifiably nor consistently biodegradable. According to EPA standards, if 60% of a substance has degraded into carbon dioxide and water in 28 days, it passes its OECD 301 standard, and can be called ”readily biodegradable”—even though it is not necessarily clear what happens to the remaining mass and chemistry of this substance when it is diluted with water.
Stick to powdered detergent in cardboard. I’ll keep looking for a good, convenient laundry soap with zero plastic — fingers crossed.
