About Us

The Bubble Bandit

It has been the frustrations of thousands of people like you that galvanized us to develop a commercial grade automatic dishwasher detergent that would function well in a residential under-the-counter dishwasher environment.

Bubble Bandit was formulated to fill a need that is best expressed by Mona Charen. She is a columnist for Creators Syndicate and wrote an article for the Spokane Spokesman-Review that was published 1/25/2011. Below is an excerpt from her article "Phosphate Ban's Spotty Logic"

"Until recently, dish-washing soap contained about 8 percent elemental phosphorus. That’s the magic element that “strips food and grease off dirty dishes and breaks down calcium-based stains." It also prevents food from reattaching to the dishes.

Or used to. As of July 2010, the nation’s detergent manufacturers, bowing to laws regulating phosphorus in 17 states, reconfigured the formula for all dish-washing soap to contain less than 0.5 percent phosphorus. It’s taken till now for most of us to notice, as we used up the old (the wonderful old) soap and unwittingly made the switch.

Environmentalists argue that phosphorus winds up in our lakes and streams, causing algae blooms, which in turn reduce the oxygen available for other life. They admit that the amount of phosphorus coming from dishwasher soap is small, but, according to Jani Gilbert, a spokeswoman for the Department of Ecology in Washington state, “Anything we can do is good.”

Well, hang on. According to a 2003 Minnesota study, only 1.9 percent of the phosphorus in that state came from dish washing detergent. And even the New York Times acknowledges that fertilizer and manure are the big culprits, with dish-washing soap contributing only “a fraction” of phosphates in the water.

Besides, removing phosphorus has other environmental consequences. People may run their dishwashers twice (guilty), causing more greenhouse gases to be created, or they may hand-wash their dishes, using more hot water than machines do (there are studies that show that hand-washers tend to run the hot water too long – really).

This stealth attack on our dishes happened with little public debate. If there really is a serious problem with phosphates in our rivers and streams (and from my quick inquiries, it seems to vary considerably around the nation), then voters should be offered alternatives. We can reduce our use of lawn fertilizers, for example. I’d prefer a yellow lawn to grimy dishes if it came to that.

In other words, environmentalists may not know what they’re talking about. In any case, something as intimate and critical as the cleanliness of our dishes ought not to be decided through stealth or backroom deals."

We at Bandito Products are not willing to adjust...and neither should you!

Get You Some!

Your Bubble Bandit Team