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Washington Bans Chemicals; Industry Freaks
Frosty Piss writes "The governor of Washington is scheduled to sign legislation today to ban flame retardants called PBDEs in furniture, televisions, and computers in the state. This is despite the more than $220,000 the chemical industry has spent since 2005 to defeat the legislation. At a time when the federal government is largely ineffectual in regulating long-used but potentially dangerous industrial chemicals, the Washington ban could be the beginning of the end for PBDEs across the nation. 'The industry that makes deca and PBDEs is freaking out because they lost so severely in Washington state and other states will follow,' said a spokeswoman for the Washington Toxics Coalition. 'It really is a message from Washington state and policymakers that we won't accept chemicals that build up in our bodies and our children.'"
I believe that companies are already doing this with RoHS compliant materials. Which if I recall, is a requirement for the EU. So I don't think it would be a big issue, but most items sold in the US are hardly RoHS compliant.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
We still have some other ammunition for the flame retardant applications. Aluminum hydroxide, Magnesium hydroxide, Phosphorus based stuff, intumescent stuff, nanoclay stuff, melamine crystals... It maybe a painful for industrial players, they have to figure out a way, but it's going to be OK for consumers.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
I should hope so, thermodynamics tends to ensure things like that. Ethanol, petrol, coal, etc are all just ways of transporting energy in usable form. You're not magically creating any new energy. The idea behind using ethanol instead of petrol is that currently there's a lot of CO2 stored in petrol, but by growing plants then burning them, we're not adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.
Unless you were referring to energy required to actually process crops into ethanol, in which case you might remember that the crops from which ethanol is refined produce byproducts capable of also being harnessed for their energy content.
im in ur
Throwing a CF bulb in the garbage at the end of its life produces releases about half as much mercury as a coal plant powering an equivalent regular bulb. Note that this figure includes the smaller amount of mercury produced powering the CF bulb.
Given that coal is roughly 50% of all the power generation in the US, and that lighting is less than 50% of all power usage-- switching all standard bulbs to CF will result in a net reduction in environmental mercury *in addition* to reducing numerous other pollutants produced by generation.
And as a final note: which do you think is easier to collect and recycle? Mercury in bulbs, or mercury nicely mixed into our atmosphere?
Asbestos isn't nearly so dangerous, if handled correctly, as to outweigh the benefits it provides. Yes when it was used carelessly (even if from ignorance at the time) and people were working daily in a cloud of the stuff without even a filter mask, it caused some nasty side effects. But on the other hand it could have been tamed with a bit of effort and kept on saving lives.
The problem with Asbestos is that it was used as an every day building material. This meant you had every day builders working with it. The sort of guys who wont even bother to wear proper boots or a hard hat because, well, whatever. There is no reason in the world to believe that they could ever work safely with asbestos.
Not to mention the poor bastard homeowners who just want to hang a picture or knock a wall down, and don't stop to think that perhaps putting a sledgehammer in their wall might one day cause them to develop a very nasty and painful form of cancer. Let alone their kids, who end up breathing in the dust. Yes, I know, they should stop to think, but people are dumb.
Expecting dumb people to safely handle something as nasty as asbestos was never going to work. It would be like selling regent grade sulfuric acid on the shelves of Wal*Mart as a drain cleaner and expecting people to handle it safely and not dispose of it down the nearest storm drain.
I repeat : any chemical, that is not bio-degradeable, ends up on our plate and accumulates in the whole eco-system.
Any material that is not biodegradable, stays in the foodchain for thousands of years. We are slowly poisoning ourselves. You think too small-scale.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The industry got slammed for using sat fats and then got blamed for the transfats when it was the well-intentioned food nannies that lead to the change?
Next thing you know, someone is going to suggest that we shouldn't drive faster than 70mph, and you'll start driving 1mph just to show them. Maybe, just maybe, the appropriate response to "Don't put unhealthy stuff in food" is to find healthy stuff to put into food. But that would require that corporations not resort to childish petulance whenever they don't get their way.
Did the furniture industry start putting PBDEs in the materials or were they compelled by some well-intentioned safety group or legislation?
Sure, they were required to not have their furniture burst into flames, so naturally they went out, did some research and found the safest flame-retardant they could find... right? Right? Well, after Penta-BDEs were found in breast milk in the '90s, that research was done, resulting in the banning of Penta- and Octa- BDEs in Europe. Further research into DecaBDEs "revealed a number of uncertainties concerning possible effects on the environment".
Funny, in most arguments, the person making the assertion is the one that has to provide the burden of proof, but when corporate interests are on the line, suddenly the laws of logic fly out the windows, and by default many people blindly accept whatever the corporation says as truth by assertion: "The company asserts that their flame retardant is safe, therefore it must be so." Demands for the company to prove their claim are unacceptable to these people.
This refutes your WTC asbestos claims. from the article: "Asbestos would have been not better in resisting this level of heat. Indeed, sprayed-on asbestos might well have been blasted away more readily than other material due to its lightweight, loose-fiber constituency."
And, am I reading you correctly about brakes? You like having asbestos dust in the air produced from brake pads?
Actually, California has only banned penta-PBDEs and octa-PBDEs, but has not banned deca-PBDEs--and the ban doesn't go into effect until next year. Europe, which started the whole thing, has only banned penta-PBDEs and octa-PBDEs but not deca-PBDEs--California's legislation is modeled after Europe's. And the reason why deca-PBDEs are not banned is because the Swedish study which showed problems with PBDEs only showed problems with penta- and octa- but not with deca-PBDEs.
Washington is banning all PBDEs, including deca-PBDEs, which were not shown by the Swedish investigation as being harmful. As such, the Washington legislation goes beyond California's or Europe's.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
..When you can't buy anything flame resistant or UL listed. Or anything, for that matter. Is Washington a big enough state to overcome the costs associated with a differentiated product line? Will companies even make things that can't cost-effectively comply with other regulations and industry liability practices that require flame resistance?
There are other flame retardants that do not accumulate in biological tissue.
The issue here is that many human mothers have accumulated adequate levels of PBDEs in their fatty tissue that their breast milk contains it at high enough levels to cause thyroid dysfunction.
It is a nightmare waiting to happen. PBDEs that accumulate in biological tissue....remind anyone of anything...
Oh yeah, they are closely chemically related to PCB-95 - if anyone remembers...the chemical in Lake Michigan that caused developmental defects in the children of mothers who ate a lot of lake fish....
Its like deja vue all over again.
Actually I have, and the result was not what you claim. They were specifically looking for chemicals so I'm pretty confident it wasn't just an oversight. Have you tried it yourself or is this just more "I read it on the Internet?".
While a lot of what are termed "natural" additives in foods are anything but natural, a lot of industrial chemicals do occur naturally on their own. Citric acid, for example, is used quite heavily in many industries, and is an "industrial chemical".
yes, I suggest readers do look up the details. your "hundreds perhaps thousands" is sheer unadulterated fear mongering. The studies show averages in the few dozen range, and none over 60.
For example:
-- http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2004/2004-10-20 -10.asp
And:
-- http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/t oxics/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=12622
.html for details. Urine tests reveal chemicals leaving the body and do not necessarily represent a sustained level of toxicity. There are substances the body passes through without using ... like corn kernels. ;) Thus, the presence of a substance in a urine sample does not mean the substance had any effect on the body.
Moyers' own "results" were the result of blood and urine tests. A combined total of 84 out of 150 they were looking for. And the details of what they are were not released, other than a few "eye popper" ones such as DDT. See http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/problem/bodyburden
Many of the "industrial chemicals" listed include things like the paint or wood finish you buy at your local hardware store, or the weed killer you buy from the store. News articles tend to downplay those. Note the distinct lack of details (in teh news articles) beyond the headline grabbers such as DDT. Why is that? DDT gets attention due to the great DDT scare/hoax. But as even the above referenced studies state regarding DDT:
This is like other chemicals/substances where you only read/hear about them saying things like "In high concentrations/doses...". Why? because small doses/exposure does not show the dramatic effects. News flash: Dihydrogen oxide in high doses/concentrations
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Had the World Trade Center buildings been finished with asbestos many experts believe they would have survived.
m l
The WTC did have asbestos. It all blew off in the big explosion. Ignorance at work indeed.
http://www.asbestos.org/news/wtc_02_newfinding.ht
We are all just people.