"Barry Lennox" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 09:55:00 -0500, Chuck Harris
wrote:

James Sweet wrote:

The whole Lead issue is a hot button in the electronic industry. It
started in Europe, and has spread. Essentially, the mandate is out to
get the lead out of solder in the manufacturing process. I really don't
quite know how this is going to affect the service industry yet. I still
have my trusty 60/40 Kester next to the bench. Sometime in the future i
might have to have separate solder pencils for non leaded solder,
special solder, and a method to ID what it is. Time will tell.

Bob



I never have had much luck with lead free solder, never seems to make
good
joints.



One wonders how many Printed Circuit Board
equivalents of lead one improperly discarded
automotive battery contains?

My guess would be thousands of circuit cards worth
of lead.

How many car batteries are out there?


A good point, this Lead free is so much BS driven by the nutters. IF
lead solvency is such a big problem, what about lead in car wheel
weights, every time it rains, it washes over the weights then straight
into the waste water system. And many many roofs in Europe, the rain
washes over the lead sheathing then into the waste water.

And lead water distribution pipes in much of the UK.

There's precious little evidence its a problem. It's just the stupid
EU has this "precautionary principle" enshrined that more or less
states that if you think something may be a problem ,you should act,
even although there is no evidence to support it.

Barry Lennox

Maybe? But the more prosperous Romans used lead drink containers and look
where it got them. Quite a few of the most rich (Emperors etc.) went mad!
Lead fumes are supposed to be bad too; see also unleaded gasoline!
On a similar ecological note; we still have the well for household water
supply that we dug 35 years ago; before a municipal water supply became
available, and when there were fewer neighbours.
That water still tests 'good', bacteriologically; but in the intervening
years neighbours have used herbicides and pesticides, often just to try and
get a 'greener' lawn! Or just to get rid of dandelions, which when young are
edible btw.
I wouldn't drink the stuff now! Oddly our grass+clover hardly ever tended to
(well I did stick some limestone on it a few years ago, mainly because
someone gave it to me!), only gets cut occasionally, and looks fine!
Most landfills are/must be toxic pits of potential pollution, complete with
the lead from old car batteries, tyres, rotting furniture, old vinyl etc.
etc. ... you name it!
And the Great Lakes, biggest, now polluted, freshwater resources in the
world? And next the oceans? Polluted? From run offs?
Shame on us!
PS You know how radioactivity is measured in half lives? e.g. Plutonium with
a half life of say 10,000 years!
I wonder what is the 'half life' of one car battery weighing say 25 pounds!
Several hundred? One thousand years? Maybe in the future we'll be digging up
those 'landfills' to recover "recyclable products"?