Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
This might be the first recorded Think-Of-The-Children infinite loop:
"If you get rid of the flame retardant, people will die in fires. Think of the children!"
"No, YOU think of the children, who are filling up with toxic chemicals!"
"YOU think of the children, who are currently on fire!"
(and so forth)
Meanwhile, the children grow up and move to Vancouver.
I like that the /. ad on this page was "It only takes a spark" (smokey the bear).
But yeah, if one child catches fire but it saves ten thousand from cancer, that's unfortunately a better decision over all. Note it's not like children are spontaneously combusting without PBDEs, it's just that the companies will happily use the cheapest fire-proofing despite the consequences.
More to the point, a parent can stop a child from playing with a fire a lot easier than they can stop a corporation from leaking toxins into the water supply. This is, oddly enough, how legislation is supposed to work.
A.
You'd be surprised at the current effectiveness of Vista's Firewall. Talk about retardant!
Lemme see here:
1. Have mature product with static revenues
2. Have legislature ban mature product
3. Feebly fight against ban so you can tell public you tried
4. Introduce new, more expensive product
5. Profit!!
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.
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.