I've had good luck with the laundry disks, but found several 'ifs' about
their efficacy:
You need clean water. . . hard water ruins them fairly quickly;
I wasn't using soap before the disks -- the disks got my whites from
way-off-white to nearly-white, quite a noticeable difference, but not like
soap or detergent and nothing like bleach;
If you use just a little soap, just a time or two, the disks crap right out
and don't work any longer. Soap is very active ionically (hence the
cleaning action). If you have to use soap on something, take the disks out;
Oh, well, they aren't as good as soap, but lots better than water alone.
Soap is one of the four most destructive materials reaching our waterways
(detergent and chlorine bleach are another two), so it pays big to not use
it.
Jack Rowe
