I just bought a bunch of bronze and brass pipe fittings for installing my well pump at the cottage. I don't want to use galvanized or steel due to rusting. Anyway one of the bronze fittings (1" male pipe thread to 1" male barb, from a marine supplier, made in Thailand) had a sticker on it which says "this item contains material known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects. Is it safe to be drinking water which passes through bronze? I have apartments buildings who's domestic hot water circulating pumps have to be bronze.
Birth defects are the norm in California, too bad they go undetected. If you use the fittings and your neighbor's hairy legs start looking good, use PVC.
What they are probably concerned with is the very small amount of lead that is contained in commercially manufactured brasses. There is no economical way to remove it. JD
On Tue, 04 May 2004 01:30:49 GMT, "Tom Gardner" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!: remove ns from my header address to reply via email
hmmmm...use enough of that glue and _anything_ starts looking good..
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Actually I read they (Kohler, etc.) recently went to primarily selenium and tellurium bronzes instead of customary leaded alloys (such as 85-5-5-5) to eliminate lead used. It seems to me that if that alloy survived til the late 90's or even later despite the tight controls on water purity that be, it can't be all that bad.
Tim
-- "I have misplaced my pants." - Homer Simpson | Electronics,
"habbi" wrote:(CLIP) a sticker on it which says "this item contains material known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects. (CLIP) ^^^^^^^^^^^ I recall that it has been common to add lead to brass used in kitchen faucets, to make it machine better. Could that be what they are warning you about?
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Brass isn't bronze... Unless I'm getting them confused, bronze is copper, zinc, and perhaps tin, with traces of "other stuff" that varies by each maker's recipe. Brass is copper and tin, but no zinc.
Actually, the labeling is all about the enviro-nuts in California, and a bit of legalese refered to as "Proposition 65".
Prop. 65 requires that anything containing even the tiniest trace amounts of a *HUGE* laundry-list of things which *COULD* be harmful be labeled as containing "something evil". Sure, that's all well and good, but tell me this: I've got fourteen items sitting here. All tagged with a prop. 65 warning. Do I feel "safe" because of the warnings? No. Why not? Because I know *NOTHING* from those warnings about:
What the (supposedly) dangerous substance is
How much of the "dangerous" substance is in the product
Whether the substance is "accessible" (Is it possible for me to eat, drink, or otherwise interact with the "hazardous" substance in such a manner as to allow it to cause harm?)
Whether the substance is in a form that can be considered "biologically active" (IE, some heavy-metal salts are deadly in minute quantities, while those same heavy metals in "non-salt" form are nearly as inert as helium, at least as far as bio-hazard levels are concerned)
In some cases, it's a smart move. The hundred-pound tubs of roofing asphalt behind the store where I work, for instance, carry the same labeling.
In other cases, it's sheerest scare-tactics coupled with idiocy - Among other examples, apartment complexes that aren't 100% "no smoking" being required to display a sign near every entrance making the same "This area is known to contain..." verbiage visible.
Scared the living shit out of a bunch of local oldsters when their assisted-living complex came into compliance with the signage requirements recently. Took issuing memos, bringing in testers and experts, and a whole mess of explanation and feather-smoothing over the course of several weeks to get them calmed down to the point where a mass exodus from the place was averted. The final result? "You rent to smokers, and smoking (and the smoke from it) is hazardous, so you've got to put up the warnings".
The OP's sticker almost certainly relates to the zinc (known to be bad news in high doses, as some of us here who have made the mistake of popping an arc on a galvanized pipe or similar in a less-than-well-ventilated area have personally experienced) used in the process of making bronze. It may also be reporting the trace amounts of lead that are almost always present in anything but the purest zinc.
He said the fitting was 'bronze.' But it was probably not labelled as such from the manufacturer. It's probably actually leaded brass which is why they put the 'watch out' sticker (really a CYA sticker) on it.
Jim
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Ammo is not specifically marketed with special calif. packaging, but
"WARNING: Discharging firearms in poorly ventilated areas, cleaning firearms, or handling ammunition may result in exposure to lead, a substance known to cuase birth defects, reproductive harm, cancer and other serious physical injury."
Remington Arms Co.
Jim
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On Wed, 05 May 2004 00:31:45 +0100, Mark Rand vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!: uncap my header address to reply via email
Warning! Containing this lead may be a health hazard.
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