How Dangerous Is Your Couch? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#101

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:01 PM UTC

srl wrote: post #22

001sky wrote: post #5

Of the 84,000 industrial chemicals registered for use in the United States, only about 200 have been evaluated for human safety by the Environmental Protection Agency --Wait, what? What is the EPA doing, then for 42 years? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Pro...

The next sentence: That’s because industrial chemicals are presumed safe unless proved otherwise, under the 1976 federal Toxic Substances Control Act. In other words, the EPA isn't _allowed_ to investigate products unless evidence that they are unsafe is brought before it. Makers get the benefit of the doubt.

OSHA requires MSDS with toxicology information for virtually all industrial chemicals.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#102

Post by 001sky » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:13 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #98

001sky wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to people who aren't as well educated or who aren't members of the reality-based community, Please. This is america. We don't need to talk down to people like this. 200/84000 = 0.24%. EPA doesn't have a clue about 99.76% of the registered chemicals for sale? Experts? It doesn't take a rocket scientis or a member of the tea party to figure out something is odd-ball with that? It would seem more political…

I didn't mean to rag on conservatives, though I guess my wording made it sound that way. I just mean people who aren't susceptible to argument with numbers and facts, the kind of argument you would be comfortable making, the kind of argument scientists are good at making. It would seem more politically feasible to say, here is some tax money. Lets test this stuff. You're suggesting the most politically appealing pitc…

This is one of those cases where the old saying comes to mind:

Sunlight is the best disenfectant

Good news is that sunlight is cheap and easy.

Science needs to do science. Information needs to flow. right now, the system looks more a bunch of "experts" on the take or incompetent. More worried about securing funding, managing their careers, promoting their pet projects, etc. The [trust me] argument is a political failure, because of these demonstrated problems.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#103

Post by rdl » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:17 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #77

rdl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume flame retardants are mainly only needed for couches of smokers (I've never randomly put a flame onto my couch for fun to see if it would burn), so even if fire retardants save 100 people from fires they caused through voluntary negligence while subjecting 1 additional person to cancer or other illness due to chemicals, I'm not sure if it's a fair trade. Saving firefighters might be a reasonable argument, tho…

Do we know that anyone has contracted cancer as a result of flame retardants used in furniture? I re-read the article looking for clear evidence, and what I saw on close read was weasel-wording: when direct health effects are being talked about, the subject of the sentence becomes "flame retardants" rather than a specific chemical; when lax investigations become a topic, it's the EPA's laxity (the EPA isn't solely re…

The old stuff (PCBs and PBBs) definitely had health (and environmental) risks. PCBs are famous, and PBBs are in the EU RoHS, so I'd consider them comparable to lead solder in badness at a first glance (not horrible, but not great). Cancer is pretty hard to prove, but other health effects have had studies (at least for PentaPBDE, nothing for TDCPP (Chlorinated Tris)).

TDCPP might actually be on balance worth using; similarly, I think DDT probably is on balance worthwhile for some applications, and asbestos is still used for some purposes. It's all about tradeoffs, but it is easier to justify a tradeoff when the people paying the costs and receiving the benefits are the same. I get close to zero benefit from fire retardant foam in my couch, probably less than the financial cost of the chemicals.

(I am generally anti whacko unsubstantiated environmentalist/save-the-children activists, but I have some personal experience with PCB contaminated transformers; bleh.)

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#104

Post by Alex3917 » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:24 PM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #47

Alex3917 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"According to the CDC, in the same period, cigarette consumption in the US adult population has fallen from 33.2% in 1980 to 20.9% in 2004." Those who smoke cigarettes also smoke a lot less than they used to, so total cigarette consumption is maybe only half as much or less compared to what it once was.

Also, it seems that smokers (at least in the US) are much more likely to go outside to smoke now, even when at their own home. Sorry, no data just personal recollections from childhood in the '80s.

This seems correct anecdotally. At some point they figured out that smoking is somewhat less bad for you if you smoke outside, so maybe this had some effect.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#105

Post by rdl » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:29 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #87

srl wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next sentence: That’s because industrial chemicals are presumed safe unless proved otherwise, under the 1976 federal Toxic Substances Control Act. In other words, the EPA isn't _allowed_ to investigate products unless evidence that they are unsafe is brought before it. Makers get the benefit of the doubt.

The EPA is not the primary investigator or regulator of industrial chemicals!

Who is? OSHA on the industrial side, and CPSC on the consumer side?

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#106

Post by AJ007 » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:33 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #62

tokenadult wrote: post #49

Another top-level comment wrote: between this and the article about brain parasites in california, HN is scaring the crap out of me And I guess that's why my all-time favorite external link to share here on Hacker News is "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html by Peter Norvig, Google's director of research. To resolve the issue of the safety trade-offs of no…

I assume flame retardants are mainly only needed for couches of smokers (I've never randomly put a flame onto my couch for fun to see if it would burn), so even if fire retardants save 100 people from fires they caused through voluntary negligence while subjecting 1 additional person to cancer or other illness due to chemicals, I'm not sure if it's a fair trade. Saving firefighters might be a reasonable argument, tho…

Its not just firefighters, but people who live in shared buildings -- apartment, condominium, co-op, etc. In which case, it would appear evident to me that the real policy issue is one of allowing smoking indoors.

Unfortunately the bureaucratic process tends to lean towards spending enormous amounts of time and resources on issues that could be "hacked" fairly easily.

When we add a lot of variables to a problem we end up with solutions that not only are challenging to rationalize, but also tend to have ugly side effects. This is something I've learned from running my own business, and it seems to be reflected on a government level as well.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#107

Post by TheAmazingIdiot » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #62

tokenadult wrote: post #49

Another top-level comment wrote: between this and the article about brain parasites in california, HN is scaring the crap out of me And I guess that's why my all-time favorite external link to share here on Hacker News is "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html by Peter Norvig, Google's director of research. To resolve the issue of the safety trade-offs of no…

I assume flame retardants are mainly only needed for couches of smokers (I've never randomly put a flame onto my couch for fun to see if it would burn), so even if fire retardants save 100 people from fires they caused through voluntary negligence while subjecting 1 additional person to cancer or other illness due to chemicals, I'm not sure if it's a fair trade. Saving firefighters might be a reasonable argument, tho…

This last winter, we had a nasty ice-storm that coated everything in about a 1/8 to 1/4 coat of ice. I was working in a nearby city, so going home was nigh impossible.

I ended up staying with a friend. She has a roommate, and they both smoke. I ended up sleeping on a bed there. What I saw disturbed me greatly:

The pillow, sheet, and 2 blankets all had various amounts of burns from ashes and cigarettes. The sizes on some of the burns were so big I could fit my index finger through.

I have to wonder: how do they keep from catching their surroundings on fire?

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#108

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:37 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #105

tptacek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EPA is not the primary investigator or regulator of industrial chemicals!

Who is? OSHA on the industrial side, and CPSC on the consumer side?

OSHA and EPA have overlapping missions on chemical toxicity, don't they?

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#109

Post by rfzabick » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

lignuist wrote: post #23

walkon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to info on such beds?

It is called "Relax" and is manufactured by an austrian company. http://www.relax-bettsysteme.at/en

Are you in the states? How did you order it? I could only find a link for finding dealers in Europe.

Re: How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

#110

Post by AJ007 » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 11:44 PM UTC

greenyoda wrote: post #78

DanBC wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> emit highly toxic mercury Do you have a source for energy efficient CFLs "emitting mercury"?

They certainly emit mercury when they're broken, and the instructions for cleaning up broken CFLs call for several hours of ventilation, which implies that the mercury vapor escapes into the atmosphere. (See, for example, the cleanup instructions at the bottom of this page: http://www.epa.state.il.us/mercury/compact-fluorescent.html ) I'd guess that a large percentage of people who buy CFLs are totally unaware of how…

These things also are not supposed to be used covered by a bulb or upside down. (link I found the quickest http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/when-you-shoudnt-use-cfl-bul... )

I've seen local ordinances that in effect mandate the incorrect usage of CFLs. As such, a fixture at my mom's house results in a burned out (due to overheating) CFL about once every 6 months.