Is Your Computer Leaking Toxic Dust?

n0alpha writes "A recent study by scientists at the University of Washington suggests that computers emit dangerous chemicals. Specifically, chemicals called PBDEs (poly-brominated-diphyenyl ethers) found in the household dust that collects on your monitor and keyboard could pose a health threat. Scientists say the chemicals have caused developmental and learning defects in laboratory animals and may pose a threat to people and animals. 'It's critical we phase these materials out,' said Suellen Mele, Citizens for Resource Conservation. And some companies are doing just that."

Comments

Legislation

[Big Nothing]

Here in Sweden the PBDEs are already banned through legislation, and I think the entire EU is on the way towords a ban as well.

Re:Legislation

[Big Nothing]

After some research, I can provide some more informations without totally talking out of my ass:

Penta- and octa-BDE (PBDE and OBDE) are the most toxic and will be banned in the entire EU come august (not yet banned here in Sweden, sorry for the irresponsible, blatant lie).

Deca-BDE will not be banned in EU yet, but Sweden is working on getting a national ban (and trying to get EU to ban DBDE as well).

I sit corrected.

The website has plenty of propaganda

[Crasoum]

The capacity of PBDEs to bioaccumulate in fatty tissue and biomagnify up the food chain, in combination with their persistence and toxicity make this class of chemicals of high concern to the environment and human health.

If you eat your pets, you have more problems then just PBDEs

Now the accumilate of this chemical through birds is worrysome, just like what has been happeenign with Mecury and Pesticides, but how much of the article is just scare tactics of few to frighten many?

As all things, before anyone becomes overly worried, research. Afterall it takes some odd 100+ cans of diet Dr pepper with saccharine a day to get possible cancer.

Then again, I could be mis-informed

Re:The website has plenty of propaganda

[CAIMLAS]

It might take some odd 100+ cans of soda with saccarine to get cancer, but:

- What about the flavor enhancers, dyes, preservatives, and other such synthetic 'foods' which we eat daily?
- What about the horemones, pesticides, and animal drugs which we eat whenever we consume meat?
- What about the pesticides we eat whenever we consume even non-processed fruits?
- What about the polution from combusted petrolium?
- What about the mercury that is now all-too-present in nearly all fish?
- What about the chlorine and other toxins added to our drinking water?
- What about the large amounts of radiation that now bombard us from the sun, due to canopy depletion?
- What about the miriad of toxins in your average household cleaner, paint, or other such off-the-shelf can?
- What about the millions of pounds of other air or water-born chemicals which are put out by industry every year?
- There are many, many, many more...

Face it. There are a lot of factor's in today's modern world which lead to getting cancer. It's why there is such a high instnace of cancer in the world today.

I'd think that in 20 years, cancer incidence will be a lot higher - almost to epedemic proportions. Then maybe the medical industry will stop irradiating people to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and stop sitting on the various actual cures which have been experimented with.

Until then, we'll just have to try and eat healthily, exercise, and try and avoid contact with the nastier elements.

Re:In RTFA, I saw that...

[ishark]

Well, the article says that there are 150+ other compounds which can act as fire retardant, so it's just a matter of choosing another one instead of disposing of all the electronics equipment.....

Re:'dats a rhetorical question...

[afidel]

Generally the new electronics smell is caused by either volatile compounds left from the plastic manufacturing process or the burning of solder flux on the heated solder joints.

CDC FAQ on PBBs and PBDEs

[rtos]

US CDC has a rather helpful list of questions and answers called ToxFAQs(TM) for Polybrominated Biphenyls and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBBs AND PBDEs). Of particular interest is this:

" HIGHLIGHTS: Polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are manmade chemicals found in plastics used in a variety of consumer products to make them difficult to burn. Some people who ate food contaminated with PBBs in the 1970s had skin problems. Almost nothing is known about health effects of PBDEs in people. PBBs have been found in at least 9 of the 1,613 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). PBDEs have not been identified in any of the 1,613 sites."

Basically, we don't really know much about the effects on humans of this class of chemicals. That said, they do seem to be very persistant chemicals... which could exacerbate any problems that do eventually show up.

Either way, I guess we should all stop licking our monitors and keyboards just in case.

Re:Everything is bad those days

[abb3w]

If I recon correctly, gasoline fumes contains beneze. Have we stopped using gas ?

No, but most western countries have put limits on the amount of benzene permissible in gasoline, eg: USA, Canada, etc.

Re:'dats a rhetorical question...

[Cruciform]

If you know the contents of solder resin/rosin, I'd bet that that is your culprit.

I like that smell. But maybe it's just because the brain cells it kills cause my brain to release pleasure stimulating endorphins.

Re:'dats a rhetorical question...

[fbjon]

Well, I have to go check what NECs LaViE S laptop smells like. It's the first laptop produced using safe flameretardants.

Here's the original japanese pressrelease, and a excite.co.jp translated version.

Some numbers and thoughts...

[Idarubicin]

From the linked report, the highest concentrations observed in the sampled dust were on the order of 200 pg/cm^2. That's 2E-10 grams per square centimeter; most of their measurements found lower concentrations.

Their wipe tests were performed after dust was allowed to accumulate for at least five days. Let's suppose that I regularly remove and ingest the dust from 200 cm^2 of my computer. That would be licking the dust off about thirty square inches of my computer's case.

In that case, I'm being exposed to 40 ng per week, or about 2 micrograms per year. That's about 0.1 mg over the course of my lifetime--a tenth of a milligram.

A recent literature review(1) (abstract and full text) gives a threshold for toxicity due to octa-BDE (the most toxic compounds studied in the wipe tets) as 2 mg/kg (fetal toxicity/teratongenicity, rat and rabbit models.)

The most toxic compound being phased out (penta-BDE; not measured in the wipe tests) affects neurobehavioural development from 0.6 mg/kg (rat and mouse models.)

The carcinogenicity of these compounds is not well-characterized, however any effects seem to appear at much higher exposures that one would expect in the real world.

In other words, these compounds bear watching and the fact that they are bioaccumulative is troubling--but they're definitely not something to panic about. I'd also be more concerned about ingestion from other sources--bioaccumulations in fish and eggs--rather than from your computer hardware. Those problems, in turn, can be addressed through proper disposal of retired computer equipment.

(1) Darnerud PO. "Toxic effects of brominated flame retardants in man and in wildlife." Environ. Int. 29(6):841-53 (2003).

Re:Dust ON computers?

[dupup]

Not sure if this helps, but I just heard on NPR that the PBDEs leach out of the plastic that's used in the housing.

More questionable priorities in risk news

[phearlez]

Computers may spit out some questionable chemicals but they pale in comparison to the other more common things that spew chemicals which also have larger surface area and/or mass (meaning more outgassing). The biggest concern, IMHO, is carpet.

You think a computer has a "new" smell? Go in any room with carpet that has been laid in the last month. For allergens and irritants you'll never get out of your computer the things that come from old ductwork. Etc etc. Calling for chemical output reductions in computers seems to me like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Re:'dats a rhetorical question...

[RasTafarii]

the quantities of deca-BDE found were in the ~TRILLIONTHS of a gram [~100 picograms/cm2].

to make mice have neurological symptoms, they had to dose them with .8 MILLIGRAMS/kilo of bodyweight, a quantity billions of times higher...

see:

http://www.computertakeback.com/docUploads/bfr_r ep ort.pdf?CFID=4748427&CFTOKEN=85189172

Re:In RTFA, I saw that...

[Dogtanian]

In case you don't realize, not everything needs to be made of plastic. There was once this material called 'metal' (pronounced me' tal). Many metals are quite fire resistant. Computers, keyboards, and mice could easily be made of such a material.

They could be made from such a material. Not 'easily', though. Not in the sense that they can be made 'easily' with moulded plastic.

And not inexpensively. Personally, I think modern plastics are *way* underrated for the quality of life they've given us. This isn't an attempt to justify the worst excesses of our modern consumer society- our plastic 'supply' is no more infinite than the petrochemicals required to make it, and we should have our eye towards more recycling. For all that, I'd rather try to deal sensibly with the problems plastics cause than engage in some reactionary and ultimately counter-productive reversion to 'natural' materials.

I'd be interested in finding out how good a computer we could build with 'natural' materials and no plastics. Not something with the power of anything approaching a PC I'd bet, and even with mass production, probably hideously expensive.