On 11/21/2009 5:40 PM William Sommerwerck spake thus:

I am a believer in aggressive government regulation. Really. But...

I also believe there is no such thing as a hazardous substance -- it
is how materials are used and disposed of that makes them hazardous
-- or not.

Lead is a poison, and a nasty one. We know that. The question is
really what happes to the lead in the solder when the item is
disposed. I'm still not convinced that it easily finds its way into
the water supply.

It does. Like most every other element, lead reacts with other stuff in
the environment to form salts, acids, etc., so while elemental lead
itself may not be a huge environmental problem, these compounds can very
easily contaminate water and soil.

It's really bad for kids. And I definitely don't want to be ingesting
that stuff. So the RoHS rationale is very understandable.

The problem, of course, is the unintended consequences on the
electronics side (like planes falling out of the sky?).


--
I am a Canadian who was born and raised in The Netherlands. I live on
Planet Earth on a spot of land called Canada. We have noisy neighbours.

- harvested from Usenet