On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:02:09 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
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From: The Natural Philosopher
Newsgroups: uk.d-i-y
Subject: Envoonmental health guidelines (was unpleasant surprise behind wallpaper)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:02:09 +0100
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Fredxx wrote:
"Clot" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Clint Sharp wrote:
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Clint Sharp wrote:
Perhaps an orbital sander might blend the paint edges in enough.
Otherwise lining paper would be the normal solution.
Need to be wary of doing this if the house is old, possibly lead
based paint.
On a wall? I doubt it. Woodwork, yes. Walls and ceilings used
distemper.
Wouldn't want to put money on that, I'd definitely do a lead test
before sanding it down if it appears to be . Just because it
*should* be distemper and lead based pain *should* only be used on
woodwork...
Oh FFS. Lead isn't that poisonous.
Agreed, it is repeated exposure that could be an issue. There is an issue
with young children who could ingest lead containing dust.
This issue is just as overblown as the nonsense about asbestos and mercury
from CFLs these days.
It can't be all that bad if the government is willing to put amalgam
fillings in your teeth!
As part of some purely private research into as it happened, nuclear
energy, I had occasion to attempt to understand issues surrounding
toxicity limits and teh handling of 'dangersous stuff'
Now, from rusty memory, it seems to go like this
Substance X is identified as being a health hazard because people or
mice have been shown to die more readily when heavily dosed with it.
Substitute lead?mercury/plutonium or whatever for X.
A graph of mortality over levels of substance X is drawn up.
A level such that any death over random would be totally buried in the
noise, and assuming linear extrapolations of high doses to zero doses is
valid, is set up. Usually so that the level is less than 1% of the level
that produces ANY noticeable change in mortality or indeed in health.
So at that point the "recommended dose" is in fact about a hundred times
less than that which does anything detectable.
At that point, the legislation kicks in, and every use of that material
that could conceivably result in exceeding that 1% limit is surrounded
in dire warnings, safety equipment and the like. Viz most of us lived
happily with asbestos for years, and haven;'t died yet: deaths were
largely occurring in people who had high and CONTINUOUS exposure to it.
There is a large body of evidence that suggests that the body is in
fact quite capable of ridding itself of poisons provided the systems are
not overloaded by continuous high exposure.
And finally, if there is no commercial reason to keep on using substance
X, because better (and presumably safer) substances exist, then its
banned from general use.
Unfortunately the replacements aren't always better or even as good when
the original is banned, although they may become so later.
This is very much the case with mercury
thermometers and barometers, asbestos in insulation and brake pads, and
lead in petrol (which WAS actually a Bad Thing in urban environments and
did cause detectable problems.
Although I have heard that there may be some difficulty in determining if
there has been much of an improvement since leaded petrol was banned, as
any improvement may have been swamped by the removal of lead pipes (and/or
the addition of chemical to stop soft water absorbing the lead in remaining
pipes).
Not half so much as diesel particulates
do now, mind you).
This is one of the reasons given for us having higher taxation on diesel
than the rest of Europe does. Although I do remember a Green Party
spokesman declaring that particulates from diesel engined cars were not
really a problem and it was the particulates from lorries and buses that
needed to be controlled.
Lead in fishing weights has also been banned, because eating a bloody
great ball of lead DID kill wildlife.
IO am not sure anyone has ever died, or become ill as a part of
ingesting lead paint.
Or small quantities of mercury, either. The people who suffered were
hatters, who used it on a daily basis, or miners..
The point here being that most of these so called 'dangerous' compounds
are not. Not in the very small and very occasional exposure to which we
might be subject: The Law is there because of pretty suspect and very
extended extrapolations from very sketchy data, for which there is very
little evidence that the extrapolation is in fact justified. So the Law
errs way on the cautionary side, as do all the dire warnings.
Unfortunately amplified by the sensationalist press.
There is a world pof difference between 'failing to provide proper
labelling on a product which might just, if gallons were ingested, prove
fatal' and being harmed by a splash on your skin, or a moments fume
inhalation..
As with all things, context and perspective is important.
Apropos nothing much, have a look here
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/w...page_168.shtml
The actual facts are that nuclear energy is in fact far safer and kills
less people than any other energy source.
Is that your perception however?
It *is* my perception, but there again, I am an engineer and am used to
factoring potential effects against likelihood and have done a small amount
of design work for the nuclear industry. I've also looked at reports of
Chernobyl (back in my student days) and the design and operations faults
that would not be permitted here. Much of the emotion around nuclear power
is driven by Chernobyl and the problems of Windscale/Sellafied, but
Windscale was an early system, rushed into operation primarily for the
military and has very little relationship to modern design and practice for
civil use.
SteveW