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Comment by p-e-w | Hacker News Reader

The CFC ban really threw the baby out with the bathwater.

We went from "let's put this stuff into every household item, and release it into the atmosphere by the billions of tons" to "nothing must ever contain CFCs ever again, including critical medical products that use only insignificant amounts".

Similar mistakes were made with asbestos and dental amalgam, where the panicked removal often released more contaminants than would have been during the item's entire lifetime otherwise, and the substitute materials were later found to have their own problems.

There's a big lesson in this for future regulatory action regarding environmental issues.

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Interestingly this did not happen with lead. The regulations for that have significant exceptions for things like medical technology, aviation, military use, and equipment only used by trained professionals. And of course the one big massive hole: aviation fuel.

Lead is still everywhere: In fishing ballast, in curtains, in camera stands, ...

I used to love removing those little lead pellets from curtain weight ropes. It wouldn't have crossed my mind to so much as wash my hands afterwards. I've seen children chewing on fishing lead, and nobody seemed to even be aware there's a risk involved.

I mean, people used to ADD LEAD TO THEIR WINE(!!!) by the grams to give it that "heavy sweetness". Still, it took centuries for the population at large to notice that this might be a problem.

And soon, every single piece of electronics will be lead apatite…

Nah, that's not how any of it works, you can stop fearmongering. Even if so, it's not lead but a material composed with lead atoms, just like how lead is used now in many alloys without danger. I don't understand the low key fearmongering.

>> And soon, every single piece of electronics will be lead apatite…

> Nah, that's not how any of it works, you can stop fearmongering. Even if so, it's not lead but a material composed with lead atoms, just like how lead is used now in many alloys without danger. I don't understand the low key fearmongering.

Nah, that's not fearmongering. That is plain reasoning within the context of a valid concerned discussion of lead.

Previous uses of lead, historically incorrectly assumed to be (using your words) "without danger", have been phased out for a long time (e.g. lead additives for car gasoline), or are being actively replaced (e.g. lead-based water pipes in homes). https://www.epa.gov/lead/learn-about-lead

LK-99, the possible superconductor implied in adastra22's lead apatite comment, is 74 percent lead by mass.

Due to lead's negative environmental and health impacts ( https://echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/lead ) it is regulated e.g. by REACH ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth... ) and the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_Substances_Control_Act_o... ).

I up the ante: imagine lead-based superconductor technology becomes a mass market reality, and therefore lead would be used in everyday appliances such as electrical cables, floating toys etc.

Nobody wants bulk masses of lead landing in trash uncontrollably.

Those things are not the same.

If your only concern is the lead landing in trash uncontrollably, you can solve it by just controlling the trash (we mostly do that already).

Lead has been phased out because of direct contamination and environment contamination. A chemically stable superconductor tape won't be a problem for either of those.

The manufacturing process will probably be much more of a problem, but again, it's a matter of solving that problem.

You are using the same logic as anti-vaxxers who point at the ingredients of vaccines and say "there's mercury in there, it MUST be bad for you!". Lead as part of a bigger molecule behaves differently from lead as a standalone metal.

It depends on the particular chemistry and whether the lead can become bioavailable.

This isn’t an alloy, it’s an ionic bond. Any acidic solution would dissolve it, releasing lead ions into solution.

like uric acid in water? https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Perspiration

Lead-containing compounds are toxic. In fact, as far as I'm aware, lead-containing compounds are the only toxic kinds of lead. Metallic lead is only hazardous because corrosion forms lead salts on its surface.

No longer with Aviation fuel. FAA allows unleaded AVgas now.

And it isn't a hole, it is needed for anti-knock. Most General Aviation (GA) Planes really do run on very basic carb systems (with magnetos!) and believe me, the Air Fuel (AF) mixture is a big deal when you are at 10,000 feet or so, especially when it is warm.

When it's cold it's easier to fly, and also less lead is needed AFAIK.

Not aviation fuel in general. Jet fuel does not contain lead. Only aviation GASOLINE for piston engines contains lead, and that can finally be phased out now that unleaded replacements are available for the whole fleet.

You write "nothing must ever contain CFCs ever again, including critical medical products that use only insignificant amounts" while Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol writes:

> There were a few exceptions for "essential uses" where no acceptable substitutes were initially found (for example, in the past metered dose inhalers commonly used to treat asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were exempt) or Halon fire suppression systems used in submarines and aircraft (but not in general industry).

You write "and the substitute materials were later found to have their own problems."

Could you be more specific? I mean, there's no wonder material that has no problems. I don't think you mean that trivial observation, so do you mean the substitutes overall were more harmful than asbestos, across the full product cycle from mining to disposal?

And, does "the panicked removal" mean to include the use of unlicensed workers not following legal requirements for removal? As I recall, predatory contractors did take advantage of the situation, but then what's the lesson - that we need more government oversight of all building contract work?

Regarding "its on problems" I think patent commenter was primarily talking about amalgamated filings.

The scare is that amalgamated filings contained mercury. The thing is that they were bonded with silver which made them safe.

The thing is that some dentists are often removing them, to replace with other filings. The process exposes patient to mercury and the alternative filings often don't last as long as the amalgamated one.

Then why mention asbestos?

Even limiting it to dental amalgam, p-e-w says there is a lesson for future regulatory action. What is that lesson?

I don't recall the government ever said amalgam fillings should be removed, and the FDA now certainly says to leave them in: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/dental-devices/dental-am...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_amalgam_controversy makes it seem like much of the controversy came from people "using pseudoscience to scare patients into more lucrative treatment options", not the government. The major new regulations in the US seems to be installing filters at the dentists' to keep mercury waste out of the public sewer system.

I therefore don't see the lesson from regulating CFCs, nor from asbestos, nor from dental amalgam.

The big lesson is that CFC removal has been a massive win for humanity and that kind of categorical and decisive climate action is exactly what we need in the future!

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220321-what-happened-to...

We have sadly not applied the same ideas to asbestos. We definitely need to. And to many other terrible materials that poison us and our environment all the time (like PFAS).

This was not a mistake. It was a humanity saving decision. It's the blueprint to save us from the climate catastrophe.

> The big lesson is that CFC removal has been a massive win for humanity and that kind of categorical and decisive climate action is exactly what we need in the future!

That's one lesson. Another lesson is that when powerful people take such celebrated "decisive" action, less powerful people get trampled underfoot, in this case through potentially crippling medical costs.

> This was not a mistake. It was a humanity saving decision.

The phasing out of CFCs was not a mistake. The way it was implemented, however, contained many mistakes, some of which have negatively impacted many lives, as illustrated by the top-level comment.

The lesson has nothing to do with the CFC removal.

The problem isn't that CFC got removed. The problem is that a new patent got granted for an insignificant change. Why that change happened in the first place doesn't matter.

No, the CFCs in medical inhalers were of insignificant quantity and should not have been changed. The new propellants are equal-to-slightly-inferior, in my experience.

Of course they should have been changed!

They caused massive damage to the planet. And they continue to do so, the CFCs they emitted will be in the atmosphere for decades.

https://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/crj/1998/137198.pdf In 1991 metered inhalers were responsible for 1% of all CFCs. Since then production has gone down 30-fold https://i0.wp.com/research.csiro.au/acc/wp-content/uploads/s...

Had we done nothing, CFCs from inhalers would be something like 1/3rd of total emissions right now (simply because of the drop). But it's far worse. The world population is much higher now, and healthcare is much more accessible around the world. India, China, the Philippines, many countries with hundreds of millions of people can now prescribe them; they were never included in any 1991 numbers because their healthcare systems weren't that well developed back then. If you factor all of those people in, the majority of CFCs would be emitted by inhalers.

CFCs and Inhalers are a significant problem. No one deserves to get skin cancer because of CFCs.

You should blame manufacturers and the insane patent system, not the scientists working hard to keep the planet from dying.

You understand that the negative consequences of changing propellants described in the top-level comment did not occur in other societies, right?

The interesting thing is that most of the world kept the CFCs inhalers for many years. Immediately ceasing production so that people are thrown under the bus was a US thing.

I really think we are looking at a case of "corruption harms people" and not one of "unintended side effects should be looked upon".

The lesson is that the US’s medical system is ridiculous.

We have sadly not applied the same ideas to asbestos. We definitely need to.

Removing asbestos causes its own problems and if not done correctly can cause more damage than just leaving it alone. Obviously we should never use asbestos as building material again, and when we run across it while renovating or demolishing a building, it should be dealt with correctly, but proactively going into buildings and ripping out asbestos that isn't being disturbed might not be the best way to go.

Asbestos is still everywhere, but whenever it's found (at least where I live), it's red alert and specialist cleanup crews suit up and come in to dispose of it safely. Most countries banned its use, but I just read that Russia still mines and uses it in construction.

Not my experience. It’s often removed by unlicensed handy men who don’t have any training or much awareness and who will tell you candidly that they think it’s not really dangerous anyway. At least that’s been my experience as a renter here in the bay area.

For some kinds, you really don't have to worry that much, e.g. removing asbestos-containing floor tile by prying up (vs. trying to grind it away) only requires that you double-bag it when you take it to the landfill, and there's a recommendation to wet it down to prevent dust, and to wear a mask.

But yeah also there's totally unlicensed folks ripping lagging off old boilers in a t-shirt. No worries, they usually filter it thru a cigarette.

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