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types, the Minister of Housing and Local Government in 1953 set up a
Committee to examine and report upon the effect of the increased use of
detergents.
The use of detergents was causing concern for four different reasons:
There were fears that they might give rise to dermatitis and other dangers
to health; there was some anxiety about their possible effect on domestic
equipment and plumbing; there were suggestions that they were responsible
for excessive foaming and possibly reduced operational efficiency,
at a number of sewage works; and there was in consequence concern about
the purity of the rivers, including some used as sources of public water
supply, into which the effluents from sewage works are discharged.
In regard to the first point, the Committee's conclusion was that
although when regularly used in contact with the skin, detergents can
cause dermatitis, their widespread use has not led to any significant
increase in the incidence of dermatitis, and is not likely to do so if they
are used in a sensible way. While it is appreciated that household
detergents can cause trouble in some plumbing systems and household
appliances, these were not felt to be serious, irremediable or widespread.
As to the possible effect on sewage disposal works, it was accepted that
they do reach the works where they are not readily or completely destroyed.
The foaming type of detergent can be a nuisance and in some cases could
endanger public health and interfere with the purification processes,
while the effluent again would contain some detergent. This could find
its way to a river, affecting its ability to support healthy fish and plant life
and result in offensive or toxic conditions. About the position at the
West Middlesex disposal works which receives sewage from this district,
the Chief Engineer expressed the opinion that the problem is so much a
national one that nothing which individuals or establishments could do
would prove of any help. His view that it was for the manufacturer
to develop a type of synthetic detergent material which would be free
from these adverse effects at sewage works. Alternatively, of course,
it may be for those in charge of the works to find an answer.
Apart from the effect on plant and fish life in rivers to which these
detergents are admitted is the fact that rivers below sewage treatment
works are used as a source of water supply for about one quarter of the
population of the country. The possibilities here are that they might
lower the efficiency of the treatment of the sewage, might add to the
difficulties of water purification, while traces of surface-active material
might be present in the drinking water supply. Despite these possibilities,
the Committee found no evidence of their causing any ill effect. The
Chief Chemist of the Colne Valley Water Company is of the opinion that
any water supplied by the Company throughout the Borough is unlikely
to be affected by the discharge of waste products into rivers.
The Committee made the general observation that except as regards
foam production at sewage works, the risks and difficulties to which the
use of synthetic detergents appears to be giving rise at sewage works, in
rivers and certain water works are limited and marginal rather than
widespread and acute, and made recommendations: that regular
determinations should be made of the concentrations of surface activ
material in sewage effluents discharged into rivers; that water under-