What is laundry detergent made of?
Laundry detergent takes vegetable oil, crude oil, sulfuric acid, caustic soda, soda ash and water directly. Trace them back and you pass 11 made things on the way to 14 raw materials.
How laundry detergent is made See it on the map
What goes straight in
From the ground: 14 raw materials
- Crude oil goes straight in
- Water goes straight in
- Soybeans through vegetable oil
- Rapeseed through vegetable oil
- Clay through vegetable oil
- Sulfur through sulfuric acid
- Air through sulfuric acid
- Rock salt through soda ash
- Limestone through soda ash
- Trona through soda ash
- Natural gas through soda ash, carbon dioxide
- Corn through soda ash, carbon dioxide
- Sugarcane through soda ash, carbon dioxide, baker's yeast, molasses
- Sugar beet through soda ash, carbon dioxide, baker's yeast, molasses
Made along the way: 7 things
Chemicals and fuels 5
Food 2
What it is packed in
On the line, but left out of everything above, because it holds the finished thing rather than goes into it.