Is phosphate free the same as petrochemical free?
Phosphates are a plant food which, when it accumulates in fresh water sources will promote the growth of plant matter which when it dies will use up all the available oxygen from the water, and so kill all animal life. Phosphate reduction has had the effect of preventing this rapid growth of plant life in the great lakes and many rivers, making it possible for fish to return to those waters. Phosphate is also urgently needed to grow our food crops. If we do not have it we can not produce as much food, so it is bad economy to waste it by sending it down stream in urban waste water. Phosphates are often available in adequate quantities in the soil but are made unavailable by high pH soils. So we can make better use of phosphates by lowering our soil pH. Removing petrochemicals from our waste water is done to reduce petrochemicals going into irrigation and even drinking water downstream, removing it from contaminating our food supply. Petrochemicals are a very wide range of chemicals that
