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Is Your Computer Leaking Toxic Dust?

Posted by michael on from the goggles-do-nothing dept.

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."

3 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Legislation by Big+Nothing · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
  2. Re:In RTFA, I saw that... by ishark · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.....

  3. Some numbers and thoughts... by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Informative
    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).

    --
    ~Idarubicin