[IDisposableHero]

An anoying article. The author rants at length about how evul the gubmint is for banning clean shirts, calls "trisodium phosphate" "a natural element" which cannot be correct chemically correct, and falls for the "natural must be safe" falacy. He totally fails to even mention the reasoning that led, rightly or not, to this chemical compound being no longer used, never mind adding up pros and cons of it.

The first para at wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisodium_phosphate ) is more informative, which is a damning lack of reasearch.

[yread]

While the article is so long and so wrong in the beginning that I can't blame you for not reading the whole thing, but he does mention the reason

The idea was to help the fish in their oxygen competition with algae

[IDisposableHero]

Oh look, it's there near the end in one dismissive sentence, and comes along with two wrong "facts":

1) the household contribution to algae creation is negligible - That would be the good result of this policy limiting the use of harmfull chemical, and not a reason to remove it.

2) the scientific evidence on the issue of algae's effect on fish runs in all directions Piles of dead fish are not a subtle effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology)

and the whole thing is filled with this bizarre idea that the sole purpose of governement regulation is to hurt people. I'm sure that there are lots of good, bad and trival drivers of policy, but pure sadism is unlikely to be among them. If anyone wants to understand what's actually going on (ecologically or politically) this article has absolutely nothing to offer.