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pahunkboy -> RE: DANGER !!! You are being poisoned NOW !!! (8/10/2010 8:53:22 AM)
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ORIGINAL: thornhappy
There is a bunch of bad info in there. Excuse the lack of trimming, but I'm going to take it piece by piece.
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ORIGINAL: Aneirin
Lead
CRT displays contain 4-8 lbs of lead. Toxic to the kidneys, nervous & reproductive systems & inhibits mental development of young children and fetuses.
Barium
Used in the front panel of the CRT to protect users from radiation. Short-term exposure to barium can cause brain swelling, muscle weakness, and damage to the heart, liver and spleen.
CRTs are almost dead by now. The same things are in CRT TVs, have been for years, and there was no mass panic. Your only exposure to these materials would be if you broke the tube and handled or breathed the dust.
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Brominated Flame Retardants
Likely endocrine disrupters, reduce levels of the hormone thyroxin in exposed animals and can potentially harm the developing fetus.http://www.svtc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_bfrs_in_electronics
Don't want flameproofing? Hope you have good insurance. Bromine is something folks are moving away from, since it's a potent greenhouse gas.
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PCHexavalent Chromium
Used for corrosion protection of untreated & galvanized steel plates & hardener for steel housing. Can cause DNA damage & asthmatic bronchitis.
Chromium is the bane of manufacturing, being a major pain in the ass to handle and properly dispose of. Manufacturers keep this to an absolute minimum, and many companies have eliminated it completely from their products. It's incorporated within metal alloys or old metal paint primer, not sitting around for you to breathe.
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Beryllium
Found on motherboards and connectors and is a human carcinogen.
Beryllium is integrated within a metal alloy. Some high power devices (pass transistors, cellular base station transmitter transistors) have a beryllium oxide "pill" embedded within the package for increased thermal conductivity. Beryllium is a carcinogen only when the beryllium dust is inhaled, causing berylliosis. Brush-Wellman and Kyocera both had that happen to workers until manufacturing techniques and practices were developed to prevent this.
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Mercury
Found in light bulbs in flat panel displays, switches, & printed wiring boards. Linked to brain & kidney damage, harm to the developing fetus & can be passed through breast milk and fish consumption.
It's in all florescent lights (most backlights for LCD displays), including the "green" energy saving lights. Some position switches use it, as do a lot of thermostats in your own home. I don't know where the hell they are getting that it's used on a PWB. That stuff's so obnoxious that you don't want it on your board line.
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Cadmium
Found in SMD chip resistors, infrared detectors, semiconductors, older types of cathode ray tubes, and some plastics. Linked to kidney damage & harm to fragile bones.
Cadmium's another flipping disaster that people avoid. Cadmium is only used in specialized semiconductors, not the common ones. All this stuff is alloyed or in the body of a semiconductor. Most SMD resistors don't use it, AFIK. It's not just floating out there.
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Plastics
Up to 13.8 pounds in an average computer. Dioxin can be formed when PVC is burned. Combinations of plastics are hard to separate and recycle. Found in printed circuit boards, and components such as connectors, plastic covers & cables.
Good luck finding a substitute. It's a known problem with companies that dump their old products to China, Taiwan, or India and the waste is burned to extract the metal. Just sitting around it isn't going to affect you.
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You know that smell when your computer has been running for a while, that sort of hot electronic chemically smell eminating from the computer or being blasted out by the cooling fan, just exactly what is it, a combination of the above perhaps.
Wrong. It's the plastics outgassing. If you're smelling this a lot, you need a bigger power supply or a better fan.
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So, we have it that Cancer and Cancer related illnesses are on the rise and other ailments being discovered, now can this be a result of our more advanced medical knowledge, or is it there is something accumulating in our enviroment that is very harmful to us, could we be fuelling that harm with our ignorance and pseudo education ?
I thought the pseudo education was interesting, considering the inaccuracies in the article.
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Oh and edited to add, if anyone lives in the Silicon Valley Area, Santa Clara County I believe, take the toxic tour
I have lived there. All the early semiconductor companies just did abysmal things with their solvents and most of that damage was through the '70s. It's really hard to say that it was all done in the poor areas - remember that the area was largely orchards and you can't compare the population distribution now to what it was then. I worked in the industry through the '80s, and saw the chemical handling and practices at the time. No one was dumping stuff straight into the ground or sewers (no matter what the Coalition said at the time - they were implying that waste from a fab went straight into the sewers with no treatment at all. I'm talking serious acids, bases, etc.)
In addition to the high tech causes, Moffett NAS and a host of small metal shops dropped toxics in the ground there. Moffett was known for solvents and fuels.
I think there's a lot of legitimate concern about some of the plastics used in our food packaging, toys, etc. It's so pervasive that it'll take some time to determine which ones are a problem and which are relatively inert. Babies don't chew on electrical cables, we don't cook with computer wires. However, we use plastic packaging for an incredible variety of food products and cook in it with a microwave.
Scaremongering just pisses me off. Anyone coming out with any manufactured product has to file paperwork on ESOH, lead content (lead free is standard in most electronics products, to the detriment of reliability (Google "tin whiskers")), and volatile organics.
Oh wow. I did not think you had any talent. That sounds fascinating!!!
The disposal part.
When I worked at a plant- we let toxic ash blow in the wind. It was supposedly safe. We also burned and released toxic crap- prior to 6am. The thinking goes that it blows over by the time people are up and about.
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