Circular Economy and Safety
May. 21st, 2022 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutYesterday evening, I was innocently wasting time on FB, when a friend reposted something from the NH Public Health Services department. That, in turn, was a link to the Lead Safe Mama / Tamara Rubin website. The basic message — some corelle from 2005 and earlier — had high levels of lead has been broadly amplified from this activist website.
It’s pretty shocking! There are redditors who have ordered lead tests from Amazon and confirmed Rubin’s findings on some of their own cookware and serveware, some of whom were motivated to do so before reading Rubin, based on toddler blood tests coming back unexpectedly high. The first question I had (after carefully removing the 1980s era, bought from Spag’s Morning Blue corelle small plates and cereal bowls from the cupboard and stacking them for further assessment, and ordering lead test kits from Amazon) was: yeah, but I also have Le Creuset plates that I use. If I retire the Corelle (which honestly, it’s border decoration, and for the bowls, _exterior_ border decoration), but keep using the Flame Le Creuset plates and bowls, am I just concentrating my use on something that might turn out to be an even worse idea? Because Rubin sure hates Le Creuset in every way!
Further, it got me thinking about a whole new set of issues related to moving towards a circular economy. Reuse / use as long as possible is of course the first goal. But if one does not need it any more, but it still has use in it, frugality and concerns for the climate, worker safety, etc., would suggest that passing it along to someone else, by donation or sale, is a great thing. Simultaneously, there does seem to be a basic idea that if the thing that is hazardous is decades old, no one is going to be doing a safety recall on it.
So then, … what?
It gets worse!
If it can’t, or shouldn’t be reused as is, but the materials are recovered and refashioned into something new, that’s a great circular economy choice. But!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-022-00431-y
*sigh*
Our regulatory scheme for consumer product safety is set up to assess the safety of new products generally made from virgin materials. It is _not_ set up to assess the safety of reused products, refurbished products, recovered and repurposed materials, etc. We’re going to have to fix that, too.
I was starting to get an inkling that there were hazards down deep in the details when I was listening to a Catherine Weetman interview (I think it was with Colin Church, but could be wrong). They were getting into packaging details, and discussing how packaging works as display, but that isn’t necessarily needed if an item will be ordered online and then delivered. Whoever it was said, it could be a blank box. And I was like, no it can’t, if it is, how on earth can we check for allergen info, and ingredients, and sodium content and so forth.
There are a ton of interlocking things going on. It’s fairly clear that we _don’t_ have realistic leachate standards for cookware — that’s not a circular economy specific issue. _New_ cookware made from _new_ materials isn’t being regulated and tested appropriately. But even if we fix it for new, we’re going to probably have to put more weight on the refurbish side, to ensure safety there, also.
It’s pretty shocking! There are redditors who have ordered lead tests from Amazon and confirmed Rubin’s findings on some of their own cookware and serveware, some of whom were motivated to do so before reading Rubin, based on toddler blood tests coming back unexpectedly high. The first question I had (after carefully removing the 1980s era, bought from Spag’s Morning Blue corelle small plates and cereal bowls from the cupboard and stacking them for further assessment, and ordering lead test kits from Amazon) was: yeah, but I also have Le Creuset plates that I use. If I retire the Corelle (which honestly, it’s border decoration, and for the bowls, _exterior_ border decoration), but keep using the Flame Le Creuset plates and bowls, am I just concentrating my use on something that might turn out to be an even worse idea? Because Rubin sure hates Le Creuset in every way!
Further, it got me thinking about a whole new set of issues related to moving towards a circular economy. Reuse / use as long as possible is of course the first goal. But if one does not need it any more, but it still has use in it, frugality and concerns for the climate, worker safety, etc., would suggest that passing it along to someone else, by donation or sale, is a great thing. Simultaneously, there does seem to be a basic idea that if the thing that is hazardous is decades old, no one is going to be doing a safety recall on it.
So then, … what?
It gets worse!
If it can’t, or shouldn’t be reused as is, but the materials are recovered and refashioned into something new, that’s a great circular economy choice. But!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-022-00431-y
*sigh*
Our regulatory scheme for consumer product safety is set up to assess the safety of new products generally made from virgin materials. It is _not_ set up to assess the safety of reused products, refurbished products, recovered and repurposed materials, etc. We’re going to have to fix that, too.
I was starting to get an inkling that there were hazards down deep in the details when I was listening to a Catherine Weetman interview (I think it was with Colin Church, but could be wrong). They were getting into packaging details, and discussing how packaging works as display, but that isn’t necessarily needed if an item will be ordered online and then delivered. Whoever it was said, it could be a blank box. And I was like, no it can’t, if it is, how on earth can we check for allergen info, and ingredients, and sodium content and so forth.
There are a ton of interlocking things going on. It’s fairly clear that we _don’t_ have realistic leachate standards for cookware — that’s not a circular economy specific issue. _New_ cookware made from _new_ materials isn’t being regulated and tested appropriately. But even if we fix it for new, we’re going to probably have to put more weight on the refurbish side, to ensure safety there, also.