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California Classes LED Component Gallium Arsenide a Carcinogen

Posted by timothy on from the tooth-fairy-is-a-cat-burglar dept.

Reader LM741N, pointing to a report released this month by California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, writes "Gallium Arsenide has now been listed as a carcinogen. Given the increasing usage of gallium arsenide, the main constituent in LEDs, and their recent championing as more efficient light sources in recent news stories and Slashdot, there may be significant environmental concerns as related to their disposal. Morover, workers in industries using the substance may be at risk of cancer as well."

16 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. Known to cause cancer... by jeffy210 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ah, California, where everything is known the cause cancer. I just got back from a trip there and saw those signs everywhere, even on most buildings. It seems to the locals it has even become a running gag.

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    "And may your days be long upon the earth."
    1. Re:Known to cause cancer... by corsec67 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Even some of the restaurants have them, "WARNING: Chemicals Known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects, or other reproductive harm may be present in food or beverages sold here or served here"

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      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    2. Re:Known to cause cancer... by R2.0 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "California has a lower limit for cancer causing chemicals than other states, which is why you see those signs on pretty much every older building."

      No, California has a law requiring ANYTHING that contains ANYTHING that MAY cause cancer to have that sign. As far as I know, there are no lower limits - if it contains any amount of any of the list of substances known to the State of California to possibly cause cancer, it gets the label.

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      "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    3. Re:Known to cause cancer... by mysidia · · Score: 3, Informative

      California claims to not be deciding it's carcinogenic? IARC:

      IARC issued the Volume 86 in its series IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. In this monograph, IARC concluded that gallium arsenide is carcinogenic to humans (Group 1). Health and Safety Code section 25249.8(a) requires that certain substances identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) or the National Toxicology Program (NTP), as described in Labor Code section 6382(b)(1) and (d), be included on the Proposition 65 list as causing cancer. Accordingly, volume 86 is at this location

      I don't understand California's conclusions that it should be added to the list, the IARC monogram they use as a basis for adding it to the list state that: 5.5 Evaluation There is inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of gallium arsenide. There is limited evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of gallium arsenide.

    4. Re:Known to cause cancer... by Miseph · · Score: 5, Informative

      "I was thinking they'd be a viable alternative to mercury-filled CCFL's."

      They still are, and truth be told CCFLs, despite containing mercury, are a viable alternative to incandescents which aren't exactly made of sunshine and pixy dust. The real problem is that we expect to just be able to throw everything in a bucket, ship it off to the dump and never have to worry or think about it again. That has never been a reasonable thought, but we're just starting to figure that out now. When the expectation is impossible to achieve, you shouldn't be surprised by disappointment.

      In the mean time, I'd suggest not crushing up and snorting your LEDs, because even if the cancer doesn't kill you, I'm sure that the deadly poisons and glass fragments will.

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      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    5. Re:Known to cause cancer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This is what happens when you have nanny state liberals in office.

      Let California be a lesson to the remaining 49 on how *NOT* to run a state.

      Did you forget to back that up with some compelling statistics you're saving for later? Let's compare housing values in silicon valley vs. detroit to see if you're right.

      That's just a comparison of the desirability of living in those places. No, it's more accurate to compare state government fiscal responsibility between California and Ohio. The fact that the economy in California continues to be able to support ruinously idiotic government that continually spends more than it takes in is part of what keeps the idiots in charge, in charge. If California were a marginal rust-belt state, it's residents would have thrown those morons in the legislature out long ago.

      That's sort of a silly comparison. If California were a rust-belt state then it would receive more in federal spending than it pays and there would be no problem. California pays the federal government $50 billion per year more than the benefits it receives. If California wasn't subsidizing the unsuccessful economies of those rust-belt states with its very successful economy (a gross state product equivalent to the GDP of Italy), there would be no problem whatsoever. Complain all you want about the idiots in charge in California, but at the end of the day if it weren't for California, many of the governments of the States in the US would be bankrupt.

    6. Re:Known to cause cancer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Which is why it has consistently had the strongest economy in the nation?

      Yeah, I'm sure rolling blackouts due to government regulations does wonders for an economy.

    7. Re:Known to cause cancer... by vsny · · Score: 5, Informative

      White LEDs are made of Gallium Nitride not Gallium Arsenide. It's the Arsenic in GaAs that is a carcinogen.

    8. Re:Known to cause cancer... by SteeldrivingJon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh hell, you don't have a clue, do you?

      The concern is not that kids will handle the lead in a TV, or the gallium arsenide in an LED. It's that old TVs and old LEDs will accumulate in the environment and leach their toxic materials into the groundwater. Weathering and other factors will fracture and/or wear away the enclosing materials, allowing some of the toxins to escape into the environment.

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      September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
    9. Re:Known to cause cancer... by amRadioHed · · Score: 5, Informative

      Maybe you should have gone on to the second page. The capital gains tax is not typically considered a tax on the middle class. From the links you provided he isn't raising the social security tax rates, only increasing the amount of taxable income. That looks like it would probably impact the upper middle class, but these aren't struggling families. I don't see any evidence given of middle class income tax increases.

      As for gas taxes nothing you linked to indicate he supports raising gas taxes, although if he did raise gas taxes and offset the increase with credits elsewhere it would probably be one of the best things you could do for the country. In case you haven't notice, or dependency on foreign fuel is a very bad thing.

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      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
    10. Re:Known to cause cancer... by Repossessed · · Score: 2, Informative

      Silicates are certainly dangerous to the lungs if not dealt with properly (as any miner before around 100 years ago, and many of them more recently), but cancer? How exactly did that get linked?

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      Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
    11. Re:Known to cause cancer... by Discordantus · · Score: 2, Informative

      The "shortage" was due to the gaming of the system that you mentioned. By shutting down perfectly good, working power plants, less electricity was supplied, creating an illusion of a true shortage. This was the biggest problem. And by extension, it was more profitable to raise energy prices than to build more power plants; nuclear or otherwise..

    12. Re:Known to cause cancer... by EnOne · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's in the MSDS for crystalline silica.
      "Crystalline silica (quartz) inhaled from occupational sources is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as class I: carcinogenic to humans"
      I believe the IARC is a part of the World Health Organization

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      Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
  2. RTFA by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2, Informative

    No surprise here. California has always been on path to economic self-destruction. This is what happens when you have nanny state liberals in office.

    The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) of the California Environmental Protection Agency is adding gallium arsenide to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer and hexafluoroacetone, nitrous oxide and vinyl cyclohexene dioxide to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity for the purposes of Proposition 65.

    This was a proposition. It was passed by the voters. The same ones who legalized marijuana, which ironically seems to have limited carcinogenicity because you never see any California state labels on it. Not that I would know.

  3. The emerging LED technology is GaN-based by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just wanted to point out that while many LED's are GaAs-based, most of the newer LED's that are starting to be used to replace things like traffic lights and light bulbs are GaN-based. No arsenic involved. Very non-toxic. In theory, your kid could eat several of the dies and be okay.

  4. GaN not GaAs by Sir+Holo · · Score: 4, Informative

    Submitter is incorrect and misleading.

    Blue and white LEDs are based on gallium nitride, not gallium arsenide. Completely different material.

    GaN, not GaAs.

    It's the arsenic that's bad. It is in some specialized non-consumer electronics, but it is most definitely NOT in LEDs.