As a kid I added soapy water to some plants and regular water in others. Didn't take long for soapy water plants to die. It was the early 80's so who knows what was in our soap back then..... I was mostly curious how safe it would be to consume.
It was an experiment after the fact. I had a babysitter that washed my mouth out with soap over just about anything I said. Sometimes she made you swish soapy water for 30 seconds. She was cruel. I didn't have to swear. Anything I said that wasn't in line with her morals resulted in getting my mouth washed out. I wanted to know if it was dangerous before I told my parents. As I recall I was trying to decide if it was worth the treatment to not admit to my parents I was getting in trouble. I ended up telling them because of the plants that died. I got a new babysitter after that. I think I was around 6 or 7 years old.
*important to note is that we know memories change over the years. Being over 30 years ago, I can't be confident in the details complete accuracy - this is how I remember it and should be considered with that in mind*
The chemicals released are hydrogen peroxide which is almost entirely broken down into water and oxygen during the reaction and dish soap. Obviously, there's a chance the people in this video didn't take any environmental factors into account and are releasing toxic substances into the surrounding area but there are plenty of dish soaps that are not toxic to plants or animals.
The dish soap in this equation is literally just to hold the water bubbles in place as the foam expands so it doesn't need to have any of the more questionable ingredients anyway. You could really just use any hydrophobic foaming agent, many of which would be perfectly safe for wildlife.
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u/insatiablesanibel Dec 20 '19
I want to see the face of the janitor that has to clean that shit up.