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Carcinogenic Contaminant 1,4-Dioxane

Submitted by RockyDog on Wed, Jun. 25, 2008

I recently read that your Natural Dish Liquid and Lemongrass & Clementine Zest Natural Dish Liquid contain 1,4-Dioxane. Are there any plans to do something about it?

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Comments (1)

scienceman
Mon, Jul. 07, 2008

1,4-Dioxane in Seventh Generation Dish Liquid

Not only are we working on doing something about this contaminant in our dish liquid, we have been working on this problem for over six years. When we first introduced a product containing sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) we knew there was the possibility of contamination with 1,4-dioxane. Therefore we set a specification of no more than 5 ppm of this contaminant in the SLES we purchased. At the time, only one company would meet that specification. Today there are a half-dozen companies meeting our specification and vying for our business. It was not a coincidence that our dish liquid had the lowest levels of 1,4-dioxane of any dish liquid tested by the Organic Consumers Association. We worked hard to keep our levels of contamination low (we had 1.5 ppm in one product, and 1.9 ppm in another. The highest level observed was 97.1 ppm).

Today we are working to develop a hand dish liquid with no SLES, and therefore no 1,4-dioxane. We've not succeeded yet, but we hope to have a product that will work as well as conventional brands, yet be 1,4-dioxane-free, in the near future.