From a political standpoint, I see RoHS as a logical consequence of
widespread environmental abuse by business.  People have attempted direct
legal remedies and found that process to be too slow, costly and
ineffective.  Go ask people living next to chemical plants in Louisiana.
Legislation is also a slow process, but it has a broader reach and a more
lasting effect than a lawsuit.

It is now obvious to many that simply producing a chemical will result in
its dispersal throughout the environment.  Even if most of the end products
lock up a particular chemical and will not release it under normal use, the
result is still broad dispersal.  People have a tendency to misuse and abuse
products.  Accidents occur in handling and manufacture.  Most of the
processes used for production, packaging and transport are lossy.  Material
escapes through cracks, diffusion, cleaning and myriad other ways.

The consequence of all this material dispersal has been a global change in
our biochemical environment.  A further consequence has been a surge in
cancer rates, obesity, reproductive disorders and other unexplained medical
conditions.  All organisms have been affected, including humans.  It is this
wholesale impact upon life on earth that is driving legislation like RoHS
and REACH.  People are tired of having their health damaged, and their
children's lives diminished through environmental abuse.

Simple logic of coincidence draws the conclusion that our pollution is
likely responsible for our new ills.  Proof is served up by numerous
scientific studies.  The failure of industry to reverse the trend drives a
political solution.  Thus, we get new regulations.

The documentation of the hazards we have released is voluminous.  Below are
just a few links to studies and articles.  If you take the time to look, you
can find dozens of scientific papers on the environmental impacts of all 6
RoHS substances and hundreds of other chemicals introduced since the 50s.
My favorite source for this material is still Science News at
http://www.sciencenews.org.

I think it is long past time to hold all industries responsible for the
environmental consequences of their actions.  Legislation like RoHS, REACH
and others will gradually force a replacement of old, dirty processes with
new, greener ones.  Businesses that embrace the change will benefit as much
as the environment will.

Links:
PBDEs are endocrine disruptors.  They have been linked to the epidemic of
obesity in the US.  Our tissues contain the highest levels of PBDEs on the
planet.
http://www.uab.edu/images/shrp/shrp06/Putative%20contributors%20to%20the%20s
ecular%20increase%20in%20obesity%20-%20exploring%20the%20roads%20less%20trav
eled.pdf Study of contributors to increases in obesity.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20031025/bob10.asp describes the uses,
benefits and harm caused by penta- and octa-PBDEs.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060624/fob6.asp Science News Article -
Toxic Leftovers: Microbes convert flame retardant.
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/2006/40/i14/abs/es052508d.ht
ml Abstract of original paper.

If any of the above links are mangled by email, you can find a functioning
copy at http://www.rohswell.com/News/Genl027-Why-RoHS-and-REACH.php.

Ray Franklin
RoHSwell.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Davy, Gordon
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 12:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] REACH


Mike,

I respect you and your company, but I must part with you on some of what
you said in your last posting. You wrote, "I am not sure what is wrong
with a government asking industry on behalf of its citizens to make sure
that exposure to the substances used throughout its lifecycle is well
understood, contained, and controlled.... I am not sure why industry
should be excused from being responsible for its use of chemical
substances." Maybe my comments and questions will help in arriving at
some answers.

The way that you put it makes it sound like a no-brainer. But if it were
really that simple, one would have to conclude that REACH opponents must
have devious motives. Are you prepared to say that explicitly? Then you
mention that REACH applies to products that have been on the market for
more than twenty-five years (before 1981), so that alone gives it a
different flavor. I made some of these points before. They haven't been
refuted, but maybe they need to be repeated. While I'm directing my
questions to you, I'd welcome responses from anyone.

*    To say that you aren't sure why industry should be excused from
being responsible for its use of chemical substances is to employ a
rhetorical device called a straw man. Demolish the straw man, demolish
your opponents' position. Do you really mean to characterize REACH
opponents as believing that? Would you care to see such a casual
characterization of your position?

*    A little over fifty years ago a huge issue in the US was loyalty
oaths. It was proposed that every citizen should be required to sign
such an oath. The argument went, "If you don't have anything to hide,
why would you mind signing?" Just as today company leaders are afraid to
oppose any environmental legislation lest their company be labeled
"anti-environment," back then people were afraid to oppose a mandated
loyalty oath lest they be labeled "soft on communism." Would you say
that manufacturers who believe that their products are "well understood,
contained, and controlled" shouldn't object to proving it?

*    Legislation should develop from reasoned discourse, not from
coercion by demagogues and dogma-driven legislators who are not
accountable to anyone. From my perspective, European cultures seem not
to have a firm grasp on what representative government is all about. Or,
since the Magna Carta came from one part of Europe, they have lost the
idea of limiting government power,. Certainly much of the heritage of
European countries is totalitarianism. The EU leaders seem to be
positively reveling in their influence on the whole rest of the world
through their environmental directives. Don't you notice much more glee
about their ability to coerce than pride of accomplishment in reducing
the cost of public health, which was supposedly the intent but is never
mentioned (since that would be a means for assessing the value of their
legislation)?

And lest someone object that I am injecting politics into what is
supposed to be an engineering forum, I will counter by saying that it is
the EU legislators who are injecting politics into engineering and
manufacturing, for no discernible benefit beyond their own. To ignore
the political aspects of legislation like RoHS and REACH is to ignore
the elephant in the room.

*    We should recognize that "the government" is still just people who
are corruptible and some of whom are corrupt. Some make no pretense of
being impartial towards industry. You say that industry isn't always
magnanimous and forthright. Obviously true. But why should anyone trust
governments - particularly a non-representative government capable of
giving us RoHS - to be any more responsible than corporations? From
which is it easier to get relief?

*    To discuss risk without discussing cost is foolish, yet for
environmental issues it is the norm. No one can afford to reduce risk
beyond some threshold - one has to make choices. I have heard that it
has become much more difficult to purchase ammonium nitrate - a
fertilizer that also functions as an explosive. Despite the
inconvenience to farmers, this was no doubt a wise move for public
health. But not all restrictions have such an obvious benefit. Choices
have consequences, not all of them foreseeable. So to allow rational
choices, the discussion needs to address the trade-offs explicitly.
People differ in their risk tolerance, so there will have to be
compromise. The discussion should not be cast as greedy and
irresponsible industrialists vs. "think of the children." It's really
give and take: "If we took this, what would we have to give up and is it
worth it?"

Those 1000 substances you refer to that are going to disappear from the
market must have had some use up to now or they would not be on the
market. Do you know that any of them has been so much as suspected of
being a problem for health or the environment in all the years that it
has been used? In what way will the world be a better place because they
are gone? Will the world be a better place because of the process that
has caused them to disappear?

*    An obvious example of cost-benefit analysis is tobacco. Even the EU
doesn't have the clout (yet) to protect its citizens from this substance
which is obviously unsafe when used as intended. Its continued presence
on the market indicates that a trade-off has been made. It's worth
considering what the consequences of removing it would be. Presumably
there would be reduced cost of public health due to fewer people
smoking. Almost as predictable would be a consumer revolt - even
European citizens must have some limit to their acceptance of tyrannical
edicts for their own good. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe with the present
"global trend" towards government protecting people from all evils,
imagined as well as real, European tobacco addicts will some day have to
smuggle their cigarettes and European governments will have to find some
other source of tax revenue. A similar argument holds for alcoholic
beverages.

As an aside, I can't resist wondering about a culture that so passively
tolerates the governmental abuse of power that is becoming increasingly
evident. A government that continues unabated despite the votes of no
confidence their draft constitution received from ordinary citizens in
those countries where they were given a chance to be heard. I will say
it again: how bad do things have to get? But maybe I need some diversity
indoctrination.

For more conventional grandfathered substances, who would vote for REACH
or any proposed measure that didn't identify and document the problem it
was purported to fix? I think that it is significant that, as in the
case of RoHS, the discussion all seems to center on risk of damage that
might happen rather than on damage that is happening. That line of
argumentation is disingenuous. Everyone acknowledges that REACH is going
to be expensive. How many people know how many lives it is going to
save, or what will be the reduction in the cost of public health?
Recognizing that few subscribers to this forum are public health
experts, I will still ask - has anyone seen any such estimate?

*    There is a legal concept of "least restrictive means." The idea is
that once it has been established that the government has a valid
interest in regulating a matter, it should choose the means to meet the
need that imposes the least restrictive requirements. Here, the question
of need is not whether citizens need to be protected from dangerous
chemicals but whether it has been established that the present level of
protection is inadequate. For this there appears to be a significant
difference of opinion. It has long been established that companies bear
tort responsibility for the safety as well as suitability for use of the
products they put on the market. That responsibility even extends to
"foreseeable misuse." That responsibility alone protects the public from
the most dangerous substances. Where's the evidence that that's not
enough? It won't do to trot out scare stories from decades ago, such as
using tetraethyl lead to raise the octane rating of gasoline because it
could be patented and other suitable substitutes couldn't. Everyone
agrees that was criminally negligent. But that was long ago. Document
that the present system is allowing today a problem so serious that a
remedy is warranted. Then show that less expensive and less restrictive
remedies would be inadequate.

*    What does "make sure" mean? As Werner pointed out, it's impossible
to prove a negative. Surely what REACH contemplates is more than just
prescribing that a substance be subjected to a battery of scientific
test procedures each of whose outcome is unambiguous and whose pass-fail
criterion is well established. There are strong emotions and dogmas at
work. I'll mention again the determined opposition of die-hard opponents
of deca-BDE, who seem to have some special revelation, known only to
them and trumping a decade of scientific evidence, that this stuff is
too dangerous to tolerate. A REACH that doesn't silence these zealots is
a REACH that will cause far more problems than it solves.

*    When REACH has run its course and done its damage, there will still
be opportunities for mischief. What consideration has been given to
possible synergistic effects of substances? Who can say that not only
are substance A and substance B each harmless by themselves, they are
still harmless when both are present in a person or the environment at
ten parts per trillion or the prevailing limit of detection? Or A and B
and C... And don't expect "common sense" to be a suitable response.
There is clearly a dearth of that.

*    Next, as for NGOs having some good ideas, I think that it would be
fitting for you to share some of their relevant ones on this forum.
Identify the source of each idea you share so we can see for ourselves.
You say also that "it's good for both sides to understand each other."
Certainly no one has all the answers, and to the extent that an
organization wishes to promote those ideas by rational discourse instead
of demagoguery, we should welcome theirs.

It would be good if we could get them to distance themselves from the
irresponsible behavior of others. So to help me understand them I would
like to ask each environmental NGO to subscribe to this statement: "Our
interest is promoting by public discussion practical measures that would
reduce the cost of public health. We repudiate and dissociate ourselves
from any organization that uses deceptive claims to promote their agenda
or whose express or implied intent is to rid the biosphere of toxic
substances." Is that like a loyalty oath? Maybe, but if they won't do
that, I don't think I would have much I'd care to discuss with them.
What common ground could we find? We wouldn't be discussing the
environment or public health, but philosophy, and it's unlikely we would
be able to agree on that.

Since you say you have contact with some NGOs, why not get their
response to my proposal? That would show how open they are to ideas,
too. Some time back I approached the leader of a state "public-interest"
NGO to discuss lead in electronic products. I said that I had been
following the matter for a long time and was interested in getting a
response to my ideas from a different perspective. I was as polite as I
could be (no sarcasm), but I was forthright in my assertions. We talked
for two hours. He did not refute any of my assertions nor was he able to
produce any evidence to support his. At the end he was so upset that he
asked me to leave. I have sent him emails since, but he has never
acknowledged any of them. You probably wouldn't want to invite me to any
meetings with your NGO acquaintances.

As an aside, years ago I participated in an industry association
environmental issues task group (not IPC). The other participants were
representatives of large manufacturers of industrial and consumer
electronic equipment. They were environmental issues decision-makers who
were responsible for their companies' interests in this area. As they
discussed government-mandated (consumer-citizen subsidized) recycling of
electronic products (i.e., the best way to extract the subsidy), they
said that they were being proactive. I questioned that, saying that the
whole notion of recycling electronic products came from environmental
activists without evidence of need. There seemed to be common agreement
that as long as the recycling rules didn't favor one manufacturer over
another, it was OK or even good. Their concern was simply to minimize
any unfairness and inconvenience to their companies. I tried to promote
my ideas about its wastefulness. I got the same response I get from this
forum when I try to make the case against coerced recycling - no
refutation, but no evidence of anyone agreeing with me, either.

But quite unlike this forum, in that case I was made to feel quite
unwelcome and out of place. I have thick skin. It's hard to hurt my
feelings and I often miss social cues (facial expressions, body
language, etc.) but there the hostility was obvious. I quit attending.
So I have not found environmental NGOs that welcome ideas from all
"stakeholders." They seem to believe that, paraphrasing George Orwell,
all ideas are equal, but some are more equal than others.

*    In conclusion, it is entirely possible that some of the substances
present in the environment do cause long-term harm. For whatever reason,
cancer is more common than it used to be. But proving that something
doesn't cause cancer is virtually impossible. And thinking of cancer, it
has been proposed that one cause is nanoparticles of rubber and carbon
put into the air by tire wear. The particles lodge in the lungs, where
they act as a chronic irritant. It's obvious that not all of a tire's
tread turns into carbon dioxide and water vapor. Yet one doesn't see
along roadways a black path of particles that have been abraded away, so
what becomes of the rest? Suppose a connection were established - how
many additional cases of cancer per year from this cause would it take
to remove tires from the market? Given a plausible mechanism, would the
Precautionary Principle demand that they be removed until it can be
proved that there is no causal relationship? Refer to the discussions
above about cigarettes and trade-offs.



Gordon Davy


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