"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Ian Field wrote
tm wrote
William Sommerwerck wrote

The ROHS rationale was to protect the health of folks doing recycling.

That's only part of it. It's supposedly true that rain (and other
solvents)
leech lead from electronic equipment, and it winds up in drinking
water.

Therein lies an example of why we have the RoHS BS.

But lead was mined out of the ground in the first place!

But not much of the drinking water comes from where its mined.

Not that I think it makes any sense at all to ban lead in solder.


Much drinking water in the UK was, and continues to be, supplied via lead
pipes, and not all areas have 'hard' water supplies that coat the inside of
those pipes with a 'protective' limescale layer.

The whole 'lead in the environment' argument makes little sense, apart from
in a few special cases like lead in gasoline and paint. Certainly, lead in
solder posed no threat at all, and removing it has, in my opinion, been a
disastrous retrograde step for the 'green' movement in general, and the
electronics construction and servicing industries in particular. Using the
stuff leads to increased production costs and energy budgets, and often
shorter product lives than would otherwise have been the case when the
mature and reliable technology of leaded solder was used.

Arfa