Chris:
It turns out that lead from bullets in the soil does not necessarily mean
that it becomes bioavailable via food. In fact, the use of phosphorus (a
common ingredient in fertilizers) tends to sequester lead in a form that
passes through the body without being absorbed. So it is possible to eat
lead and not be impacted by toxic effects.
It is also possible to eat DDT and not die - in fact, according to the
American Council on Science and Health, "no DDT-related human fatalities or
chronic illnesses have ever been recorded, even among DDT-soaked workers in
anti-malarial programs or among prisoners who were fed DDT as volunteer test
subjects".
In the case of RoHS, the lead in electronics would have to be ingested or
inhaled as elemental lead in order for it to have toxic effects. I do not
know how anyone would eat lead solder, but maybe a few enterprising people
could manage to do so. A simple warning that the product contains lead and
instructions not to eat the electronic equipment might serve just as well as
banning lead from the products. The question then becomes whether the lead
is made available via the air during recycling efforts - and this is a real
possibility if you were to grind up circuit boards and/or burned them in
incinerators. So from a mitigation standpoint, the problem rests in the way
the end-of life product is treated. The argument has been that if there is
no lead (etc) in the product, then recycling becomes less hazardous. But
that is only true if the replacement substances are not as hazardous as the
original substances. That is the difficult part - how do you determine, in
a scientific, non-biased manner, whether a replacement substance is not as
hazardous as the original? That is the subject of the new EU REACH
legislation, due to go into effect this July (registration starts then). In
my opinion, the EU radical green elements will have a difficult time
separating emotional dogma from real science, and we will be forced to deal
with hundreds if not thousands of situations like RoHS over the next 20+
years. It is also my opinion that it was a mistake on the part of
governments to allow the EU to position themselves as the world's
environmental stewards, which is exactly what they have managed to do with
directives such as RoHS, ELV, Packaging and Packaging waste and now REACH.
The EU has always maintained publicly that their legislation is for
protection of their population and environment and if there was spillover
effects to other markets, well, that's not their intent but the orld will be
better off for it. But if you read a lot of the EU environmental treaties
and action plans, it becomes quite obvious that the EU intends to impact the
rest of the world through restriction of access to their markets, now the
largest consumer market in the world (450,000,000+). I think other
governments, blinded by special interest lobbying, have not been able to see
the forest through the trees.
Tim McGrady
----- Original Message -----
From: "James, Chris" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: [LF] Concern over lead free munitions
I believe I asked once before, but has anyone ever made an analysis of
ground water from the WW1 main battle field areas of France and Belgium?
30 million killed or injured, one 100gr .303 round per person gives you
200 tonnes of lead & copper but at 10k per person that's 2 million
tonnes in small arms alone. So plenty of lead in the ground there and
they still plough up shells etc so the ground must be well
"contaminated" yet they still farm it.............
Regards,
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Leadfree [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Barnes
Sent: 05 March 2007 23:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [LF] Concern over lead free munitions
Pete,
Several years ago I read Anthony Swofford's book Jarhead : A Marine's
Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. He wrote that in combat an
average of 10,000 bullets were fired per enemy soldier killed. The
motto of marine snipers was "one shot one kill" (not including all the
bullets fired in training and practice).
John Barnes KS4GL, PE, NCE, NCT, ESDC Eng, ESDC Tech, PSE, SM IEEE
dBi Corporation
http://www.dbicorporation.com/
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