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What are enzyme-based cleaners?

What are enzyme-?based cleaners? Are they just another marketing ploy?

Stop by my family’s house for supper and you’re just as likely to be asked to “pass the enzymes” as you are the pepper. But beyond helping my digestively challenged kinfolk break down our Sunday feasts, enzymes tackle a massive array of functions.

These protein-?based molecules have made themselves useful in the textile, bakery, booze and pulp and paper biz. They’re found in contact lens solution, meat tenderizer, whitening toothpastes and, yes, they do a damned good job of boosting the power of your laundry and cleaning products.

Enzymes don’t have a pretty history. We’ve been using the enzymes from dried calf stomachs to make cheese for millennia (rennet is now largely a by-?product of veal production). And today’s leather industry uses enzymes extracted from cow and pig pancreases to soften skins.

The earliest versions of cleaning enzymes were also extracted from pancreatic glands, but luckily lab-?coats figured out a way to make animal-?free enzymes (from microbes and plants) do the dirty work.

From all the marketing hype, you’d probably bet the pot that the use of enzymes in cleaning products is a brand-?spanking new invention, but save your pennies. A blend of microbial enzymes has been chewing away at dirt, grass, blood, sweat and oil stains in laundry since the 60s. Then, sometime in the 70s, those enzymes landed in hot water.

A study of Procter & Gamble detergent plant workers revealed that, uh-oh, maybe breathing in enzyme dust day in, day out isn’t so wise. Workers were coming down with serious respiratory and skin problems, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation of long-term effects.

Then industry came up with waxed, dust-?free granules, and the case was closed – at least in North America.

Across the pond, there’s long been a cagey mistrust of enzyme-?based laundry soaps. Many Brits assume these “washing-up powders” trigger rashes and irritate eczema, so much so that British shops even flag laundry soap as “non-?biological powders” free of stain-?digesting enzymes.

In 2008, the British Journal Of Dermatology published a study dispelling that assumption as a myth, stating that enzymes aren’t to blame. Allergy orgs in the UK didn’t buy it. Honestly, though, modern chemical laundry products contain so many irritants, from petroleum solvents and sudsing surfactants to fake fragrances and dyes, that I’d be hard pressed to single out enzymes as the itch culprit.

If I were you, I’d be more concerned about the synthetic antibacterial chemicals (sometimes referred to as synthetic or pseudo-enzymes) hidden in all sorts of conventional cleaners.

Bug-?killing quaternary ammonium compounds (like dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride and benzalkonium chloride) have been found in soil samples, municipal sewage sludge and hospital effluent. Like another major antibacterial chemical, triclosan, their presence has been linked to super-germs (aka antibiotic-resistant bacteria).

You’ll find this stuff in all sorts of mainstream cleaners labelled antibacterial/disinfecting, including Lysol Brand Disinfectant Spray/All Purpose Cleaner/Dual Action Disinfecting Wipes, S.C. Johnson’s Antibacterial Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner, Clorox Disinfecting Bathroom Cleaner/Wipes and Fantastik Antibacterial All Purpose Cleaner.

If, on the other hand, you’re fretting about the plant-?based enzymes in a growing number of natural cleaners, you really don’t have much to worry about.

You’ll find these powerful yet biodegradable stain digesters in all sorts of green products, from potent all-purpose cleaners like Pink Solution (which gets its enzymes from seaweed), Mold Away and Bi-?O-?Kleen’s Bac-?Out Stain and Odour Eliminator all the way to lice and bedbug fighters like Lice Squad’s Kleen Green Naturally.

To answer your second question (are enzymes just another marketing ploy?), I can’t say I’ve put them all to the test. But I can tell you that BC-?made Pink Solution creams any enzyme-?free stain removers I’ve ever tried. Hell, considering it erased all evidence of seven-day-old beet juice from a white hoodie as well as wine stains from my couch and ancient carpet stains from tenants gone by, I wouldn’t go without the stuff.

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