I first heard about bleach tabs on the frugal board at Homesteading Today. I finally found Magic brand Bleach Tabs in the checkout lane display at Home Depot. They cost $1.75 for 10 tablets, so I thought I'd give them a try. Here's what I've discovered:
1. They are NOT the same type of bleach as the bottle of bleach on the laundry aisle. A regular bottle of bleach is sodium hypochlorite and the bleach tabs are sodium dichloroisocyanurate. After reading both Wiki links, I gather that they both serve pretty much the same purpose. So far, so good.
2. The directions call for diluting one bleach tab in a gallon of water. I used my old bleach bottle. I started wondering if the bleach tab solution was more dilute than regular bleach. I re-read the Wiki link and discovered that regular bleach is normally a 3%-6% solution. I don't know what what % solution the bleach tabs end up being, I just might call the company and find out. PAUSE. I called the company and the person who knows is not in. They were very pleasant over the phone, I'll call again tomorrow morning. UPDATE: When diluted according to the directions, you have a 5% solution. I'm glad, it makes my "experiment" more even. That normal bleachy smell that I don't like was just barely evident, so I started to get skeptical.
3. I washed several loads using the bleach,about 3/4 cup per load; some towels, cleaning rags and a dingy white sweater. The towels smell clean and fresh, but the cleaning rags and sweater really brightened up. The rags were pretty old and the difference was pretty noticeable. I'm impressed. UPDATE: I dropped a tablet in a load of my son's socks, that were brown with East Texas dirt. They are clean. I am Really Impressed.
Conclusion: I don't use bleach very often, it's not good for our septic system. But for the one load a week where I use bleach, it seems like a pretty good deal. Even if I dropped one tab in the washer like the directions say you can do, I'd only spend $0.17 per load. I'm not sure I get 10 loads out of one regular bottle of bleach. This packet of bleach tabs should last me a pretty long time. I like the fact that I can stock up on bleach and not use up my precious storage space. I think I'll stash another packet away for emergency situations when I might need to use bleach to purify water. It's a keeper.
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9 Grace Notes:
You know I read an article about some survivors in Katrina that lived for a week on a bridge somewhere in N.O. Anyway, they kept clean and safe because they looted some bleach to sanitize their area. Now that I know about these tablets, they will go in my family emergency kit.
Great tip!
Interesting! I had not heard of these before, but I will look for them now.
Thanks for all the research you did.
I will have to look for these. We have a drain in our garage that begins to smell really bad in the summer. I pour in bleach, but dropping in a couple of these sound like a better idea!
I'll have to check these out next time I go to town. We have new Home Depot that I haven't been to yet so that will give me the perfection reason. :o)
Such a great tip! Thanks for telling us about it.
I sure do learn a lot from others in this blogging world. It's GREAT! :)
Very cool tip! Thanks!
I will look for these next time I am in the store!
Linda
We are also on a septic so I try to use bleach a little as possible. This sounds like a great alternative, thanks for sharing.
what a great idea! They take up less space to store, and use so much less packaging! Could it be a more "green" version of bleach? :)
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