Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can blame detergent regulations for this. About a decade or so back phosphates were banned from detergents. The problem is that was the thing that made them work really well. In order to compensate for less effective detergents, cycle times have gotten longer. Phosphate detergents are still available in commercial soaps, but I don't recommend skirting the regs here as they had some solid reasoning (algae blooms).…
Aren’t phosphates a critical component of fertilizer? I’d think that’d be a far larger source of runoff than dishwashers.
If you want zero effort spotless dishes, just mix STPP in a 1:4 ratio with cheap powdered detergent.
https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Tripolyphosphate-Super-Cleans-...