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Comment by pattmayne | Hacker News Reader

The offending ingredient (alcohol ephoxylate) is present in both my dishwasher pods and my rinse aid.

I might start skipping the rinse aid and I'll seek out dishwasher pods that don't have that ingredient.

But apparently it's more od an issue with "professional" (restaurant) dishwashers, which use less water and more chemicals. I gathered this from other comments and I don't know if it's true.

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Use powder instead of pods. It's better anyway.

I've looked at the dishwasher detergents at a few of my local grocery stores, and all of them contain either ethoxylates or "fatty alcohol alkoxylates", which some brief googling tells me are a class of chemicals that include ethoxylates. I've been unable (even at specialty health food stores) to locate a dishwasher detergent that lacks this class of chemical. If you find a brand that doesn't contain it, please let me know.

I also looked at home-made detergent recipes, as we've had good luck making our laundry detergent, but the blog I looked at showed severe streaking and residue on their example dishwasher load. I can't say that appeals to me, either.

Generic Walmart powder doesn't seem to have it.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Automatic-Dishwasher-...

Kroger gel and powder doesn't seem to have it.

https://www.kroger.com/p/kroger-lemon-scent-dishwasher-deter...

Frankly the harmful ingredients seem to be exclusive to pacs and pods.

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