SUSCEPTIBILITY TO BIODEGRADATION OF SOME WASHING AGENTS BEING USED INPOLAND

There are presented results of the biodegradation rate of 24 washing p owders being widely used in Poland. Studies were carried out with two methods according to ISO standards - the complete market products were evaluated and not only extracted surfactants. One of the methods is t o estimate the degradation in the environment, the other in the waste water plant. It has been found out that 75% of investigated agents wer e hardly decomposing under ambient conditions and about 90% of them we re only partly removed in the biological purification unit.