Like the nearly simultaneous release of Deep Impact and Armageddon, Chemical Engineering News also ran a cover story last week about the expunging of phosphates from dishwasher detergents. (You can read my version of the story here.)

The CEN story, by Michael McCoy, is great stuff. Among the points it hammers home are (1) Why we used phosphates in the first place, (2) How innovation is likely to change detergents in the future; and (3) What the environmental trade-offs of going phosphate-free are likely to be. Samples: