Good Day Holly! I know your email stated to respond to you directly, but I think that this is a good a forum as any to discuss what I feel is really unwarranted, and as Bev stated in his email, premature action concerning the use of lead in our industry. Don't get me wrong, I know that lead does pose a health risk when it's use is careless and has been allowed to contaminate the environment. I think as far as categories of industry users of lead, we seem to be taking the worlds problems with lead on OUR shoulders, and we're by no means the biggest users. That honor goes to battery makers...they use 2/3rds of the worlds lead. In fact, if you look where us electronics manufacturers rank as far as lead use goes when comparing us with other industry's, we probably don't rank in the top ten...there's all kinds of business that use more than we do, and probably not as carefull with not contaminating things as we are. So why do we take the heat? Why does it seem we are the only ones looking for alternative materials? I haven't read or heard anything about Ray-O-Vac coming out with an alternative battery? I hate to say it, but it seems like the concerns with lead in our industry has been exaggerated to mislead us...for what purpose I don't know. If that sounds like I'm being radical, maybe I am a little, because I really don't understand why our use of lead has been made to be such a big health concern in our industry...we're microscopic compared to other users. People point their fingers at electronics being a big contributor of lead hazards in our society, yet last year 25,000,000 sets of lead contaminated vinyl mini-blinds were imported from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Mexico into the United States that are 100 times more harmful to kids than my jar of solder paste would ever be...and we continue to keep importing them too. I honestly think there's some hidden agenda somewhere that we don't know about... My two cents... -Steve Gregory- ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################