How Laundry Detergent Caused an Environmental Disaster

The introduction of domestic laundry machines came with unexpected, and massive, consequences: the suds from new synthetic detergents were just too good at their job. Bubbles started clogging freshwater sources, spiraling into a full blown environmental disaster that took decades to clean up. Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them) ---------- Support us for $8/month on Patreon and keep SciShow going! https://www.patreon.com/scishow Or support us directly: https://complexly.com/support Join our SciShow email list to get the latest news and highlights: https://mailchi.mp/scishow/email ---------- Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever: Shaji John, Timos Gies, Jon Coffman, Anita, Anne Herrington, Ashley Moquin, yeyette, David Johnston, Cye Stoner, Jp Lynch, Bethany Matthews, Chris Curry, J.V. Rosenbalm, Blood Doctor Kelly, Toyas Dhake, Reed Spilmann, Garrett Galloway, Friso, Lyndsay Brown, Jeremy Mattern, Jaap Westera, Matt Curls, Eric Jensen, Chris Mackey, Adam Brainard, Piya Shedden, Steve Gums, Alex Hackman, Kevin Knupp, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer, Joseph Ruf, Jason A Saslow ---------- Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet? SciShow Tangents Podcast: https://scishow-tangents.simplecast.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scishow Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/scishow.bsky.social #SciShow #science #education #learning #complexly ---------- Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRln7TBZJAOJpidOzeZ7FKz0VKwMODpRZV57puEH0wJAYhBAmzopmvwAx3suClA5BDbdCq_I3Y4piP5/pub