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.'"

Comments

Re:But if the children

[cyfer2000]

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.

mercury in CF bulbs

[raygundan]

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?

Re:The fear born of ignorance is at work

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The fear born of ignorance is at work

[polar red]

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.

Re:Washington State, Don't come crying back....

[w3woody]

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.

Re:government mandated "solutions"

[je ne sais quoi]

Damn you dumb, troll...

Yes, folks, the same government nannies will have your neighbors throwing mercury into the trash. Never mind that it will get into the ground and your water supplies, costs more, is inferior light and sends money to the Chinese communists.

There's coal in mercury, burning coal puts mercury in the air. Mercury comes down in rain fall, gets converted to highly toxic methyl mercury and is adsorbed by fish. There's so much mercury in fish that you can't eat them any more. Solution: use less power, burn less coal, get less mercury poisoning. While using mercury laden light-bulbs might not be a perfect answer, these light bulbs last so much longer and use so much less energy there would be a net decrease in mercury contamination. (Not to mention that the mercury in these bulbs is not going to be burned and put up in the air, except where there's an incinerator.)

Never mind that the same thinking banned DDT which meant millions of Africans have died from malaria or that liberated prisoners from the Nazi death camps were bathed in DDT to kill the bugs living on them or that "Silent Spring" has been shown to be a work of fiction.

The fact of the matter is that there would be no birds of prey without banning DDT. If you think that's not a big deal relative to human life, think on this: a number of disease carrying vermin are eaten by those same birds of prey. For example, prairie dog populations are being harmed by the bubonic plague. Should DDT be used in a limited capacity, probably it could be used in a helpful way yes. It wasn't being used that way though, it was being sprayed wholesale over large swathes of land.

Never mind that banning asbestos created more danger because removing asbestos is more dangerous than using it properly, automobile brakes are nowhere near as capable, costs increased and, oh, yeah, the WTC would have stood longer because it was designed to survive airplane hits provided the guts were protected by asbestos so it would have stood a few more hours.

Show me the proof where people's brakes are failing. Show me the increased accident rates that can be directly attributed to brake failure.

Re:Washington State, Don't come crying back....

[Shadowlore]

give a sample of your blood to someone with an analytical lab, and they'll be able to find hundreds, if not thousands, of industrial chemicals.

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:

BRUSSELS, Belgium, October 20, 2004 (ENS) - The blood of ministers from 13 European Union countries is contaminated with dozens of industrial chemicals, including some that were banned decades ago. The officials have an average of 37 industrial chemicals in their blood, according to tests conducted in June and released Tuesday by the international conservation organization WWF.

The chemicals found in the European officials include those used in fire resistant sofas, non-stick pans, grease proof pizza boxes, flexible polyvinyl chloride, fragrances and pesticides.

-- http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2004/2004-10-20 -10.asp

And:

The results further show that the highest number of chemicals in one person was 54, while the median number of chemicals detected was 41. At least 13 of the same chemicals were found in every single person tested, including chemicals banned in Europe over 20 years ago as well as chemicals in widespread use today such as phthalates and perfluorinated compounds.

-- http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/policy/t oxics/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=12622

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 .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.

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:

Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence that exposure to DDT and its breakdown products at the levels found in the environment, affects reproduction and development in humans. The possible association between exposure to DDT and various types of cancers in humans has been extensively studied, particularly breast cancer, but no link has yet been established.

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