Antibacteriamania

Somewhere between serving food on dirty dishes and soaking every utensil in bleach every day there's a middle ground. It's that sweet spot of sanitation where your china and flatware are clean and your drainpipes aren't toxic. Creeping into the mix over the past decade has been an ever-growing array of products promising to rid your dishes of germs you never knew you had.

Although hot water and soap removes nearly 100 percent of harmful germs and bacteria, makers of antibacterial products have convinced many Americans that washing the microbes away is not enough. You have to kill them. By washing with antibacterial soap, you're washing away dead bacteria, rather than living ones. That may sound nice, but the antibiotic agent used in most antibacterial soaps, it turns out, keeps on killing long after it goes down your drain. It's called triclosan, and it's a growing threat to marine life and biodiversity. It's the gift that keeps on taking.

Triclosan is in antibacterial hand soaps and dish detergents, treated sponges and cutting boards (under the name Microban), clothing (where it's branded as Biofresh), and lots of other household products. If it were actually making us all safer, that would be a good argument for its continued use, despite its harmful effects on the ecology. But the evidence points to health risk posed by the widespread use of antibacterial products, causing antimicrobial-resistant super-bacteria, and weakening children's immune systems.

So, if you have enjoyed fish for dinner, thank that fish's family by sending antibiotic-free water down the drain. His offspring (and probably yours too) will be the better for it.

Jay Weinstein's blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company."