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I sent for some borax - been using it for years in my homemade washing powder.

When it eventually arrived it's not borax at all - it's Sodium Sesquicarbonate.

The box doesn't tell you what it is at all - gives a web address for product ingredients, then doesn't list it!

Anyway a quick google elicited the information that the EU have banned borax and this is what's replaced it, but no reason why.

Any ideas?

When did this happen? I bought borax in December, I'll have to make it last now

I tried Summer Naturals Ann, but they won't deliver up here so went to another site - can't remember the name now. This was back in late Feb/ early Mar. I ordered borax, which didn't arrive my the rest of my order, but I got sent regular updates. I noticed about 3-4 weeks ago that the order had changed from borax to borax substitute, and it finally arrived yesterday.

I'm guessing the delay was new legislation coming in at the beginning of April.

Otherwise I'm none the wiser.

Grr! Don't you just hate it when they do things like this??

We live quite happily using things & then bright spark comes along & says we can't... makes me mad!

I presume there is some reason for it, but they give no information as to how to use this new product - is it just a straight swap, same quantity, etc?

The only thing I found out was that it is mildly bleaching and is not a pesticide, otherwise has the same uses.

It's been banned because of safety fears. Apparently the EU have infomation that if you swallow half a kilo of it then you will be poisoned......... I kid you not. Also about 2 years ago there was a craze where of you had rough night out on the tiles and the next morning the whites of your eyes were bloodshot if you put borax, which at this time was available as a cream into the eyes it would bleach the whites of your eyes and thus you could go to work and the boss wouldn't know you had been on the lash all night. apparently it stung like hell but only for a few hours... again I kid you not.

Thirdly after three applications to the eye you wnet blind but at least the whites of your eyes would bo ok. This was the main reason why borax was banned but the replacement is as good as borax except it does not have the agent in it that either removes the stains or removes the odour / sweat [ whichever one you use borax for in home made washing liquid ] so you need to find another agent to replace the one lost.

HTH

( Not so) Big Al who is back and opperating at full tilt again......

We got some Borax recently from a local discount chain shop. It has a website on the packet and it looks like you can buy it direct from there. I haven't tried it, so don't know if you'll be sent a substitute. It's up to you if you want to give it a go.

Here's the link

Ooo! Just followed my own link and went on Dri-Pak's Ebay site where they say

Goodbye Borax, Hello Borax Substitute


Just as anyone who is looking closely at the cleaning products they use around the home is getting used to the name ‘Borax’, the EU makes some law that means it will no longer be available on the high street from June. Cleaning gurus often tell us to add borax to our arsenal of natural and traditional cleaning products, along with bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar, lemon juice and soda crystals. A reclassification of the ‘Borates’ group of minerals means that they are no longer available as a general cleaner. Borax is principally used for cleaning and laundry purposes, but many have also used them to kill ants and weeds for example. Yet all is not lost as Dri-Pak, one of the few suppliers of domestic borax is already supplying a Borax substitute that has all the same cleaning and laundry properties without the potentially hazardous applications.

I guess if you do buy from their website you will get a substitute then.

Tried to get some back in the summer for cleaning but not available at pharmacies for exactly the reasons Big Al says,so still available over the internet, the real name for borax is sodium tetraborate (The students at college use it to make slime!!!)

And yet I can pop to our local shop & buy caustic soda for the drains........ it's 4 euros for a large bottle & sits on the bottom shelf as you walk in the door...... mad, simply mad......

Green Aura wrote:The only thing I found out was that it is mildly bleaching and is not a pesticide, otherwise has the same uses.

So I presume that means I can't put it down mixed with sugar as an effective ant powder then. Bum!

Borates as a family (including sodium borate also known as Borax), have been proposed as Reprotoxins and I think this is the reason they have been removed from the consumer market. A reprotoxin is something that can have long term systemic effects on the reproductive systems in humans (Risk phrases will be R60 may impair fertility and R61 may cause harm to the unborn child). When you see the orange square with a black cross or skull and corss bones on it on the back of you cleaning goods etc, it will be accompanied by risk phrases whcih detail the hazards of a material. By the time you get to a skull and crossbones symbol, nobody wants to have it on the consumer market.

Neither of these classifications have been enacted as yet, but they will be in the first adaptation of REACH which will come into force later this year.