Detergent compositions containing soil release polymers

Claim 1

A detergent composition for washing fabrics, comprising (a) from 2 to 50 wt % of an organic surfactant system comprising one or more anionic, nonionic, cationic, amphoteric or zwitterionic surfactants; (b) from 5 to 80 wt % of a builder system comprising alkali metal aluminosilicate; (c) a soil release effective amount of a water-soluble or water-dispersible soil release polymer, (d) optionally other detergent ingredients to 100 wt %, characterised in that the alkali metal aluminosilicate builder (b) is zeolite P having a silicon to aluminium ratio not exceeding 1.33 (zeolite MAP), and the soil release polymer (c) comprises a water-soluble or water-dispersible non-end-capped sulphonated polyester comprising consisting essentially of monomer units of (i) an unsulphonated aromatic diacidic monomer (A), (ii) a sulphonated aromatic diacidic monomer (SA), (iii) optionally a hydroxylated aromatic or aliphatic diacidic monomer (HA), in an amount replacing up to 50 mole % of (A) and/or (SA), (iv) a polyol (P) selected from ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, isopropylene glycol, glycerol, 1,2,4-butanetriol and 1,2,3-butanetriol, and oligomers of these having from 1 to 8 monomer units, the polyester having a sulphur content within the range of from 0.5 to 10 wt %.