This is in response to Peter Roth's translation of N. Warburg's (University
of Stuttgart) presentation on the environmental costs of lead-bearing and
lead-free solders used in electronic products, the link to which was
provided recently by Brian Ellis. I don't  understand all that's there, but
a few things jump out at me. One is the apparent effect of silver. It seems
to be a major concern; I'd like to see some narrative on what it all means.
Another is on slide 19 - distinguishing between popular opinion, expert
opinion, and political opinion. I don't know how these are decided, but the
distinction itself is worth keeping in mind.

A third is a question - one of great interest, I would think, to an EU
decision-maker - of how reliable the analyses are, and how to demonstrate
that reliability. Would an independent analyst using the same information
have arrived at similar conclusions? How credible are the assumptions that
were made? Another is the lack of a clearly stated overall conclusion - is
there anything here that would influence an EU decision-maker to change his
mind about proposed RoHS legislation to restrict the use of lead in
electronic products? Or maybe the decision maker would decide to add silver
to the list of restricted materials.

The final item is a detail from slide 14: "The life cycle phase 'End of
Life' (recycling/deposition/incineration) is not considered, as there are no
reliable data available today on the respective impacts (especially on
landfills). In case considerable quantities of heavy metals are emitted from
those landfills, this could have significant influence to the overall
result." This is a topic that I have commented on before, but maybe it bears
repeating. While it's no doubt true that we don't know much about the effect
of silver going into landfills (other than there can't be very much of it),
there surely *are* reliable data available today on the impact of disposing
of lead-bearing electronics (and CRTs and car batteries and lead paint) in
landfills, since people have been doing that for many decades. That's plenty
long enough to establish a steady-state flow from landfill to ground water.
All that is necessary to determine the effect of all this lead in landfills
is to look at the amount that is showing up in ground water. That is much
easier to do than to perform the kind of LCA that Mr. Warburg has.

This is not a peripheral issue. This is the apparent basis for the draft
RoHS legislation - the notion that lead in discarded electronic products is
leaching out into the drinking water and poisoning the populace. In drafting
this legislation, no one considered the other issues (resource depletion,
global warming, etc.) addressed in Mr. Warburg's analysis. Before this
legislation was ever drafted, any environmental activist (or EU politician)
could have called any supplier of drinking water to inquire about the level
of lead in the water used as a source to find out if this notion was true.
Is it believable that it never occurred to anyone to do that? Maybe none of
them bothered, figuring their job was to imagine and proclaim the worst and
leave it up to their opponents - if they could get anyone to listen - to
prove them wrong. Or maybe some did, but didn't like what they found out, so
said nothing so they could keep on talking about "risk" and "a looming
crisis". Sensationalism is more exciting than fact, makes for a more
interesting career - and journalism - and keeps the money (or votes) from
frightened donors (or citizens) flowing in.

The answer is that the lead in ground water - anywhere in the world - is in
the low single digit parts per billion, and is not increasing. Long-time
forum subscribers will recall the scuba diving school conducted in an
abandoned lead mine. You don't have to survey the entire world, because the
laws of chemistry are the same everywhere. Water suppliers control lead in
the outgoing water by controlling the pH; they measure the lead at the tap.
If lead in landfills really were a problem, then even eliminating the inflow
would be a totally inadequate fix - landfills all over the world would be
polluting the drinking water and causing lead poisoning. In fact, people in
many countries are being poisoned by lead, but it's because it is still
being put into gasoline and maybe paint, not because it's getting into
ground water from landfills. And there are places in the world where it is
not safe to drink the water, but not because of lead. This forum has over
six hundred subscribers. I have invited a rebuttal before, and will do so
again now. The answer is not unknown - it's just not politically correct.

As for silver from landfills getting into the ground water in significant
quantities (and that's a big stretch), my guess is that the people who use
this water as their source of supply would be happy to see it - it would
lower their costs because they'd get to extract and keep it.

Gordon Davy
Baltimore, MD
[log in to unmask]
410-993-7399

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leadfee Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Leadfree
To temporarily stop delivery of Leadree for vacation breaks send: SET Leadfree NOMAIL
Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional
information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------