Discussion»Questions»Environment» Have you ever noticed that if a product is banned in California that 99% of the time that is the one that works the best?
If you are willing to pay the cost of all the deaths and injuries caused by chlorinated brake parts cleaners as part of the cost of the product, I might consider your complaint.
Don't like the stuff, don't use it. Don't go into a place where it is used. The reason they banned chloronated cleaners though was because if one is stupid enough to heat the product up, say with an arc welder or torch, or spray the throats of carbs while the engine is running in a closed space then it produces phosgene. If you're stupid enough to do any of that then it's on you. protecting people from there own stupidity is BS. We want products that actually work.
Also, your EPA link has nothing about cholornated solvents on it. The EPA didn't ban it, California did. Now this non chloronated crap is on shelves everywhere because so many chains don't want to warehouse two products.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at January 5, 2017 2:50 PM MST
Yes we use a sealer on our products that is illegal in many states (CA, IL and others). Thankfully not mine. And yes it is much better than the water based junk they want people in the other states. And if I were to use it I would have use so much of it to attempt to get the same appearance it would probably have the same or worse supposed "environmental impact".
I can't speak for California but we have similar bans over here in the UK, thanks largely to the European Union, which is run mainly by politicians and bureaucrats who like controlling things they know nowt about,at behest of Green types not yet twigging the double meaning of "green".
I have worked with various hazardous materials or objects, and in most cases the hazard is confined to the user, though a few, like chlorinated hydrocarbons, do have wider effects that genuinely must be taken seriously.
The problem is that often the ban is knee-jerk and you'd have to do something wilfully stupid or ignorant to harm yourself. For example, they have a Big Thing about lead, so all electrical equipment now sold in the EU has to be made with lead-free solder, giving problems in assembly and quality. Yet a little thought shows the supposed environmental hazard is far lower than they like us to believe - the answer is not to ban lead but to ensure as much as possible is recovered when the equipment is scrapped.
I used to work with assemblies containing ceramics including a lead compound. When the management started waffling about scrap ceramic being "lead" so "hazardous waste" within the meaning of the Law, I replied they'd better not eat their Sunday Lunch from china plates. Why not? The bold type is the clue!
My sister gave me another example, possibly rather distressing to some, from her work in burials and cremations administration. The EU insist on running crematoria at a higher temperature than necessary, and pre-heating them, to answer a perceived release into the atmosphere of mercury compounds from teeth fillings. The effect is much more CO2 from the extra fossil-fuel (gas), for a vanishingly small risk from amalgams now largely obsolete in favour of resins anyway.
Ignorance used to be Bliss. Not now. It's a curse.
Benedict Arnold 