6 ms·
Surfactants are just soap, and their mechanism of action is mechanical: they will physically remove a membrane, or clog a pore, or whatever. This is in contras
by el_nahual 3y ago
Surfactants are just soap, and their mechanism of action is mechanical: they will physically remove a membrane, or clog a pore, or whatever.
This is in contrast to insecticides, whose mechanism of action is toxological: they can act on a bug's nervous system.
One is soap, the other is toxin.
What this means is that soaps (surfactants) are much, much safer for the environment because they can be effectively diluted, unlike toxins which can be lethal to intersects even in minute amounts.
So yeah, if some of the soap gets on a bumblebee it might die, but you're not going to get a "one drop of this got in a hive and now everything is dead" effect.
- ljf 3y agoThis is the same reason I far prefer to disinfect with bleach rather than antibacterial cleaners - the anti bacterial properties last for ages and are messing up the sewage plants here in the UK. Can't imagine what they are doing to our water ways here (sewage ends up in our streams and lakes with alarming regularity). Bleach on the other hand loses effectiveness quickly.
- nsajko 3y agoI hope no one is actually making antibacterial cleaners with antibiotics, though.
- ljf 3y agoLikewise, but don't forget that bacteria have loads of uses and niches in the environment, so killing 'good bacteria' in a stream or environment (or in your body) can have greater impacts than it might first seem.
- devilbunny 3y agoGenerally, "antibacterial" cleaners are full of antibiotics. The ones used are usually those that are poorly absorbed by the human GI tract, and thus of limited potential medical use in humans. But since the mechanisms of action aren't unique, they too promote antibiotic resistance.
- kaba0 3y agoWhy would they be? They are anti biotics, not antibiotics. There is no need to selectively kill bacteria. You can go all-in and kill literally everything.
- devilbunny 3y ago"Kill everything" generally means something like bleach, which is very effective but not so great for your hands. Anyway, I'm not saying that's the way it should be, just the way it is. Selecting for compounds that don't kill eukaryotes is one of the ways you get your product on the market.
- seiferteric 3y agoTrue but pretty funny to see the different angles on the same thing in articles a couple years ago talking about how roundup was killing insects, not because of the glyphosate, but because of surfactants that were in there to help make better contact with the leaves. As you say, it is not a toxin, but can still have negative impact on other species.
- genewitch 3y agothere's been at least two studies done on the "inactive" vs "active" ingredients in roundup, and it was found that glyphosate by itself is less effective a pesticide than the inactive ingredients. I still chuckle every time i think about it, in a defeated, consigned to doom sort of way.
- amluto 3y agoOne big drop of PFOA (a surfactant!) in a beehive could plausibly harm that hive in a rather permanent way.
- cogman10 3y agoJust because something is a "soap" doesn't mean it isn't toxic or damaging. [1] Mosquito control has been moving towards using bacteria [2] which is safe and effective at killing mosquito larva. I'd actually be pretty concerned about putting a surfactants in the water. There's no telling how that will affect local fauna or non-targeted creatures. Consider the damage of an oil spill/leak. [1] https://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-living/nature-and-environment/effect-of-pollution-zmaz70ndzgoe/ https://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-living/nature-an... [2] https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/bti-mosquito-control https://www.epa.gov/mosquitocontrol/bti-mosquito-control
- tudorw 3y agoyes, did they test how much silicon oil a spider can ingest before it's toxic, if not you might just kill off all the natural predators :(
- wkat4242 3y agoHow long will it be before mosquitoes resistant to that bacteria become paramount? The thing is with the numbers and speed with which insects breed, evolution becomes pretty fast.
- euroderf 3y agoI wouldn't put surfactants in a pond but maybe in a perssitently flooded ditch.
- 3y ago
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago> Surfactants are molecules that have water-resisting (hydrophobic) and water-attracting (hydrophilic) parts that lower surface tension Literally the definition of soap. All they were missing was describing it as a chain with each end attracting the other property.