From my previous post, it is clear that our consumption of soap is unlikely to reduce much due to soap’s essential role in keeping us not only physically clean but also providing that psychological feeling of reassurance. In this blog post, I aim to find natural alternatives to the conventional soap that we use that might be promising in being less damaging to the environment compared to conventional soaps.
A research study by Chirani et al. has compiled a list of potential natural alternatives that can replace the toxic chemicals we use today; this is shown in table 1.
Table 1: Biodegradable natural ingredients for soap production (Chirani, et al. 2021)
Notice that the alternative ingredients proposed consist of common food items we consume, such as aloe vera, palm oil, avocado and other common food items. While these chemicals may be safer for the environment due to its biodegradability, we might also be causing indirect pollution if we adopt such a strategy on a large-scale basis. To procure the various natural ingredients to make these alternative soaps, we need these to be grown, adding even more demand for the agricultural industry to supply these crops. The problem is that the agriculture industry is far from being an environmentally friendly industry.
In the case of palm oil, which serves as an antimicrobial agent (Chirani, et al. 2021), the production of palm oil can damage the environment in its own ways. To cope with the rising demand for palm oil (which can be exacerbated if we use even more palm oil to make soaps), the land is often converted from the forest into farmland, and this lead to global biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions as more land is converted (Beyer, et al. 2020, Wilcove and Koh 2010).
Using these natural ingredients as an alternative could cause even worse pollution than the original chemical due to the problems associated with increasing production. A study by Wilcove and Koh (2010) found that in Malaysia alone, “at least 1,040,000 ha of forest were converted to oil palm from 1990 to 2005” and this was “94% of the total extent of the nation’s deforestation”. The potential ecological consequence of using such natural alternatives to soap might be even worse than maintaining the status quo since encouraging such use would only lead to demand for more of such ingredients, driving up production and in turn, worsening the environmental problem.
Additionally, the natural ingredients used to produce these alternative soaps may not even be as environmentally friendly as advertised. For example, neem oil, while minimally harmful for humans due to its low toxicity, is a powerful insecticide. Its advantage as a selective pesticide (Khanam, et al. 2017) complicates the problem since it is not clear which species would react negatively to neem oil exposure in the environment. For example, neem oil was found to be highly toxic to Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), causing multiorgan damage to the fish. Neem oil damages the gills by irritation, causing epithelial necrosis, leading to reduced oxygen intake or even hypoxia in the fish (El-Badawi, et al. 2015). Additionally, it caused excessive oxidative stress to the fish’s organs by reducing the levels of Catalase, essential for metabolizing Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into Oxygen and Hydrogen, causing organ damage from oxidative damage (El-Badawi, et al. 2015). The consequences of neem oil on Nile Tilapia when introduced to the aquatic environment presents a problem whereby we may not truly know the real extent of adding such chemicals into the environment despite the existing research showing neem oil as highly beneficial for the environment, yet, such cases show otherwise.
Neem oil was also found to affect the terrestrial environment indirectly. Neem oil works as a pesticide on the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis), a common pest. However, when the natural predator of Diatraea saccharalis, the lacewing (Ceraeochrysa claveri) larvae consumes the contaminated Diatraea saccharalis, it results in sublethal cytotoxicity in the midgut (Scudeler, et al. 2016). The problem is it is unclear if other species of insects or predators can be affected in such a secondary manner.
While the natural ingredient alternatives to making soap show potential in being better than existing chemicals used to make soap, more research is required since we appear to not really know what the actual consequences of using such new innovative solutions to tackle the existing problem are. This demonstrates how nature-based solutions may not necessarily resolve the problem of pollution but further exacerbate it in alternate ways.
References
Beyer, Robert M., América P. Durán, Tim T. Rademacher, Philip Martin, Catherine Tayleur, Sharon E. Brooks, David Coomes, Paul F. Donald, and Fiona J. Sanderson. 2020. “The environmental impacts of palm oil and its alternatives.” [Preprint]. Ecology. doi:https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.16.951301.
Chirani, Mahboobeh Rafieepoor, Elaheh Kowsari, Targol Teymourian, and Seeram Ramakrishna. 2021. “Environmental impact of increased soap consumption during COVID-19 pandemic: Biodegradable soap production and sustainable packaging.” Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier) 796: 1 – 11. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149013.
El-Badawi, Ashraf A, Alkhateib Y. Gaafar, Hossam H. Abbas, and Mohammad MN. Authman. 2015. “Toxic Effects of Neem Seeds Oil on Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and Application of Different Trials of Control.” Research Journal of Pharmaceutical, Biological and Chemical Sciences 6 (1): 645 – 658. doi:ISSN: 0975-8585.
Khanam, Zakia, Hanan M. Al-Yousef, Ompal Singh, and Irshad Ui Haq Bhat. 2017. “20 Neem Oil.” In Green Pesticides Handbook: Essential Oils for Pest Control, by Leo M. L. Nollet and Hamir Singh Rathore, 377 – 378. Taylor & Francis Group. doi:ISBN: 978-1-4987-5938-0.
Scudeler, Elton Luiz, Ana Silvia Gimenes Garcia, Carlos Roberto Padovani, Patricia Fernanda Felipe Pinheiro, and Daniela Carbalho Dos Santos. 2016. “Cytotoxic effects of neem oil in the midgut of the predator Ceraeochrysa claveri.” Micron (Elsevier) 80: 96 – 111. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2015.10.005.
Wilcove, David S., and Lian Pin Koh. 2010. “Addressing the threats to biodiversity from oil-palm agriculture.” Biodiversity and Conservation (Springer) 19: 999 – 1007. doi:10.1007/s10531-009-9760-x.
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