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Want clean dishes if you live in Spokane?  You'll probably have to shop in the black market and evade the soap police.  Reports the Associated Press:

The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.

But it's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green.

Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe's left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.

As a result, there has been a quiet rush of Spokane-area shoppers heading east on Interstate 90 into Idaho in search of old-school suds.

Don't tell the Obama administration.  It will probably attempt to take the ban national.

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Pingback| 4.1.09 @ 10:20AM

Beware The Soap Police in Washington — But As For Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Want clean dishes if you live in Spokane?  You’ll probably have to shop in the black market and evade the soap police.  Reports the Associated Press: The quest for… → Read full article… Beware The Soap Police in Washington { 0 comments… add one now } Leave a Comment Name * E-mail * Website You can use these HTML tags and attributes:

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More Blog Posts by Doug Bandow

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/04/01/beware-the-soap-police-in-wash
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