Water containing calcium hydrogen carbonate is hard water. Detergents are preferred over soaps for cleaning clothes in hard water because calcium salts of detergents are soluble in water while calcium salts of soaps are insoluble. As a result, lot of soap is wasted
Disadvantage of using detergents: Soaps are biodegradable while detergents having branched hydrocarbon chains are not biodegradable and hence cause water pollution in rivers and waterways.
