Energy Dept announces plan to allow use of radioactive metal in consumer products

[Divernan]

14. The EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive.

The US was already lethally behind the EU in protecting citizens/residents from exposure to toxic substances. Now we add radioactive materials to our products? What is this? A new Obama anti-science policy? You don't recycle radioactive!

The Obama administration is moving in the opposite direction, and against scientific knowledge in regard to protecting citizens from exposure to hazardous materials! Absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable!

While taking a train in Ireland about 6 years ago, I sat next to an American woman who was a computer salesperson assigned to the UK. She explained to me that computers and other equipment her company sold had to meet higher safety standards in all developed countries, except the US, in regard to dangerous components. I am NOT relying on a single source of information. Below are chapter and verse links to data backing up what she told me.

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/environment/air_pollution/l28035_en.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive
The EU's restriction of hazardous substances (ROHS) is often referred to as the lead-free directive, but it restricts the use of the following six substances:

Lead (Pb)
Mercury (Hg)
Cadmium (Cd)
Hexavalent chromium (Cr6+)
Polybrominated biphenyls (PBB)
Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)

The directive applies to equipment as defined by a section of the WEEE directive. The following numeric categories apply:

Large household appliances.
Small household appliances.
IT & Telecommunications equipment
Consumer equipment.
Lighting equipment—including light bulbs.
Electronic and electrical tools.
Toys, leisure, and sports equipment.
Medical devices (exemption removed in July, 2011)
Monitoring and control instruments (exemption removed in July, 2011)
Automatic dispensers.
Semiconductor devices

RoHS restricted substances have been used in a broad array of consumer electronics products. Examples of leaded components include:

paints and pigments
PVC (vinyl) cables as a stabilizer (e.g., power cords, USB cables)
solders
printed circuit board finishes, leads, internal and external interconnects
glass in television and photographic products (e.g., CRT television screens and camera lenses)
metal parts
lamps and bulbs
batteries
Hazardous materials and the high-tech trash problem

RoHS and other efforts to reduce hazardous materials in electronics are motivated in part to address the global issue of consumer electronics waste. As newer technology arrives at an ever increasing rate, consumers are discarding their obsolete products sooner than ever. This waste ends up in landfills and in countries like China to be "recycled."http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071873x

"In the fashion-conscious mobile market, 98 million U.S. cell phones took their last call in 2005. All told, the EPA estimates that in the U.S. that year, between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other equipment were discarded. If all sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total 50 million tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme."
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/01/high-tech-trash/carroll-text

American electronics sent offshore to countries like Ghana in West Africa under the guise of recycling may be doing more harm than good. Not only are adult and child workers in these jobs being poisoned by heavy metals, but these metals are returning to the U.S. "The U.S. right now is shipping large quantities of leaded materials to China, and China is the world's major manufacturing center," Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer says, a chemistry professor at Ashland University in Ohio. "It's not all that surprising things are coming full circle and now we're getting contaminated products back."[11][12]http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9919304-54.html?tag=nefd.lede
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/earth/15obrecy.html?ref=technology

Now we can add radioactive poison to all the other hazardous materials we inflict upon our own citizens and ship to 3rd world countries! A new version of American Exceptionalism!