Time to ban phosphorus from cleaning products in Manitoba

Today Kevin Lamoureux and I joined research scientist Dr. Jennifer Lukovich at Organza Market in Osborne Village to announce my intention to bring forward a bill this fall in the Legislature that would ban the sale and use of dishwasher detergents that contain phosphorus (photo above). Organza is one of the locations in Manitoba that carries phosphate-free dishwasher detergent.

Phosphorus-loading into Manitoba's waterways is one of the leading contributors to our province's growing problem of excessive algal blooms in our lakes. Lake Winnipeg in particular is in desperate need of help - this summer saw some of the largest cases of algal blooms on record. Our country's fifth great lake is slowly dying and something needs to be done.

The fact is that phosphorus is no longer needed in our detergents. Household laundry detergent has been phosphate-free since the early 1970s when a national ban was implemented in Canada. Given the desperate state of Manitoba's lakes, banning the use of phosphorus in all automatic dishwasher detergents is an idea whose time has come.

Based on data from a study of Lake Champlain, it can be estimated that eliminating phosphorous from dishwasher detergent in Manitoba will reduce the annual phosphorous load into Lake Winnipeg by about 100 tonnes, and that this would be the single most cost effective step to reduce this much phosphorous.

The proposed ban on detergent phosphorus is just one of a list of recommendations coming out of Dr. Lukovich's excellent report on the state of Lake Winnipeg. The report is based on a Manitoba Liberal Party sponsored environmental forum held in March of this year to discuss the state of the lake, the state of science and research into the lake, and possible solutions to the algal bloom problem.