Toxic Waste in Chinese drywall

One of my friends recently retired from years of driving a cement mixer truck. he says thay have been importing chinese cement containing something like 100 times the allowable amount of chromium, and he had a couple of very bad years due to the poison.

People worry too much about the wrong things. I would much more be conserned about where your food is coming from and what is being put into it. have you noticed lately that almost all the frozen fish is processed in china. Also have you notices the funny taste in some of the fish? Also have you noticed that sometimes when you eat grapes from Chile you get cramps in your extemidies while it doesn't happen with domesticly grown grapes.

John

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - A Chinese court has declared bankrupt the company at the center of a scandal over tainted milk - blamed for killing six children and sickening almost 300,000 more, one of the company's owners said Wednesday.

New Zealand's Fonterra Group said that a court in Shijiazhuang, in China's Hebei province, had issued a bankruptcy order against Sanlu Group Co. in response to a petition from a creditor.

Fonterra Chairman Henry van der Heyden said the melamine contamination was "a criminal event," but that Fonterra remained "committed to China."

Fonterra, which controls more than 95 percent of New Zealand's milk supply, is the country's largest multinational business, its second-biggest foreign currency earner and accounts for more than 24 percent of the nation's exports.

Best Regards Tom.

From my admittedly limited knowledge of machining, Gunner is correct - the big Kwacheons (sp) at school are superb, so smooth in operation, quiet, everything works well.. They recently got some new Colchesters - same crappy finish, badly fitting sheet metal, same mechanical design as the 50 year old ones they replaced. Only difference was some fancy electronics, they still had the same annoying "features" they always had.

The $20 4 inch Chinese angle grinder is superb, you will get a year or two out of it, and if it gets knocked off from the back of your truck, no big deal. At that price, you have 3 or 4 of em loaded with different disks - saves time and effort. Ditto with most of the rest of their power tools, a lot of contractors here are using the Chinese mitre saws for the same reasons.

And for the rest - these are people who build most of the electronics in your lounge room. Including the semiconductors in them. And they don't give a rats arse about supplying data sheets, or selling spares, unless you want to buy a min. of 100,000 units - they don't need to, so they don't .They have put men in space, built supersonic jet fighters, ICBM's and nuclear submarines. And, being pragmatists, and businessmen, (sorta like republicans, I guess) they will sell you any level of quality you want.

And if your company in the US wants to screw them down on price to get a bigger retail profit, well, they will happily oblige by making a cheaper, crappier product.

(What really annoys me is where a local brand, say, of clothing or footwear and has a reputation for quality built up over generations suddenly moves their manufacturing offshore - still the same price, mind you, but noticeably lower quality. best local example is "Blundstone" workboots, used to be good for 3 winters till they started leaking. Now, made in China, I refuse to buy them. May as well pay a third the price for things that last one year and are openly Chinese.)

Thought all this would have been blatantly obvious by now.......(yeh, I know I am ranting, no need to point it out..)

Andrew VK3BFA.

On Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:22:43 -0800, the infamous "Azotic" scrawled the following:

Please explain your comment, Tom.

-- Women and cats will do as they please,

and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

--Robert A. Heinlein

Its explained in the AP article: "In theory, those who were physically harmed should get compensation first," Xu said. "But our concern right now is that ... the creditor bank or banks will collude with the local government to make Sanlu's assets go to compensating themselves first."

Best Regards

Tom.

You don't find it a bit of a stretch to believe it is really all about ants inhabiting only those houses built in Florida in 2004 and 2005 out of Chinese sheetrock?

You don't think the testing lab can tell whether or not high concentrations of sulfur are present? (You might want to re-read your article on ants and look for the word or scientific notation for sulfur.)

You don't find it a bit of a stretch to believe that *anybody* might confuse the two odors.... formic acid and sulfuric acid?

If not, then fine, it was all those pesky ants out of Area 51..... you win!

Interesting. I don't deal with any such machines.

are they better, or just cheap and diposable? Another recent thread here mentioned angle grinders with slugs of metal in place of bearings.

not mine, for other people that prefer the 100% off-shore labor and diposable lifestyle, until their job is finally obsolete, I'm sure it's all chinese stuff.

They put more men into mining disasters and kids in collapsed schools than into space.

This here is the issue I have- the junk. I can't think of anything you get that's made in china because it's the "best" or "better" than other sources.

It doesn't even have to do with china itself. Most stuff you get these days is watered down garbage.

I was recently looking for US made copper clad stainless steel pots. Apparently, nobody makes one that's not paper thin or has all the spot weld well marks visible. I don't think any of the Revere or ekco stuff is even made here anymore, or anywhere close to how they were before.

Would you deal with industrial size machinery anyway? - I admit I don't, but thats what they have at my trade school, and they are getting more of them. Conversations with the apprentices in my group indicate they cant wait to get rid of the crappy worn out English/ Australian /American junk where they work and get nice new Chinese ones. (As a time honoured tradition, the apprentices get the crappy machines...for obvious reasons)

Cheap and disposable - do you need anything else?

How do you know? - ever opened it up, had a look. And unless its

So? - whats that got to do with high end electronics and manufacturing?

Yep, they will sell us junk if we want it.We don't see the high end stuff.And most of us couldn't afford it anyway. And, due to the weirdo capitalist system we mutually run, people will buy on price rather than quality - its a race to the bottom, but hey - thats "market forces"....

Are you REALLY surprised? - you act like a third world customer, you get third world quality...see above point..

Andrew VK3BFA..

I saw Chinese OEM components for medical equipment etc. at incoming inspection. Quality was whatever the vendor and purchaser agreed on, in these instances quite high. Then the parts were assembled and tested here by hard-working and careful immigrants, many of them Haitian and Cambodian refugees. The engineers and techs were mostly male Europeans like me, or Indian. I think that's due to self- selection or military service, the field is open to anyone. The broadly multinational work force was typical of electronics in New England. When I worked for a defense contractor my boss was Chinese, his was ethnic Russian.

It surprises me that people from all over the world are so alike when removed from their culture, even if their ancestors were isolated for

BUT... "The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope." - Karl Marx

I like not throwing all my money away. what's next, disposable hammers, srewdrivers and 4 use ladders? BTW, chinese ladders have made in to the US. Werner is no longer all made in the USA or assembled in mexico. Beware of what you get.

Hell, I like my clothing to fall apart after 3 washes too. Disposable is great. long life bulbs? scratch that, I like using photographic bulbs rated 3-4 hours wherever I can. Just throw them away and get new ones.

Concrete? forget that, use plaster, it washes away, so you can replace it nonstop.

It's actually a 1998 DVD player from sony, it was made in japan. TV is assembled in mexico. The inside seems to be a mix of US and japanese parts. The last of the at the time "large" CRT TVs were all assembled in mexico. The unions tried to throw down with Zenith, Zenith said f*ck you, and that was that. All other makers were there already or followed.

Speaker are all from the 90s and made here. Amp is made in the USA in the

that stuff lives in a rack from CPI, made in the USA. TV sits on a stand made in canada. I'm guessing slaves didn't made either of those.

Here's some stuff in computer room.

- computer, HP, assembled in USA, components no doubt from china

- tables, IAC, made in USA

- chair, Steelcase, made in USA

- relay rack, CPI, made in USA

- shelves, CPI and DAMAC, made in USA

- speaker, MK, made in USA (not the chinese s*it before they folded)

- amp, ATI, made in USA

- light bulbs, GE, made in USA, fixture probably mexico, same for ballast.

- keyboard, Unicomp, made in USA

- trackball, forgot brand, made in USA and recently.

- monitor, Eizo, made in japan

- last monitor, Hitachi, made in UK in 1996 (weird)

- KVM, Oulook Apex, made in USA

- power conditioner, Oneac, made in USA, transformer inside, made in USA

Is it all made here, no, but a reasonable effort was made to support manufacturing here in the USA. It's also nice that the quality is high on lots of these products, so I don't need to throw them away ever 6 months because they wore out. You have to be rich to buy all your stuff back over and over again, hell why not just lease everything from the bank of china instead?

It means you're dealing with people who don't care about quality or safety. Safety is a form of quality for people. If your people are not important, I can't imagine how important the products you make are.

you really think that people who can't make building that can hold their own weight care about the quality of export products?

judging from $20 angle grinders with fake bearings, you (or whoever)seem to want junk, and nothing else. I suggest leasing everything if that't the case.

And I agree whole heartedly with your sentiments re buying (and keeping jobs) local, but the choice is becoming increasingly difficult to make.

Disposable electronics? - I used to have a nice small business fixing things, my remaining customers are "old timers" like myself who still have the mindset that something should, with maintenance, last 20 years,,,,,totally out of sync with modern times - it will be interesting in the years ahead as the generation that is used to "junk and replace" equipment has to cope with hard times....fine if your in the loop, have an income to support it, but.......

Yep, cheap and disposable, and built with sufficient accuracy to be able to do the job. Was speaking with the carpenters who built the back deck on my house - I was surprised they were using a Chinese mitre saw rather than a Hitachi, Dewalt, etc. They explained that the Chinese one was a third the price, lasted as long, and it didn't hurt so much if the apprentice wrecked it or it got stolen from the back of the truck. They do use Dewalt cordless drills, at 5 times the price of the Chinese ones, because, in a professional, all day application, they are superb and WORTH THE MONEY. And when the Chinese start putting decent batteries in theirs, then the situation will change rapidly, no doubt.

Agreed, especially with boots - hate breaking them in, hate only getting a year out of them. But I don't have a choice, the local brand I used to buy has moved to China, while I was happy to pay twice the price of the Chinese ones, and so were a LOT of other people, the company management was more interested in "return to investors" and their own fat bonuses. Our last factory that made light bulbs closed a few years ago - bloody hell, what sort of a so called advanced western country cant even make its own light bulbs? - something is grossly wrong/totally mad here....

So, getting on to 20 years old - and are you REALLY sure where the drivers in your speakers were made?

No disagreement there - but again, its all getting old, could you replace it with good quality localally made gear?

Is this sorta like the banking system? - may not kill people, but do a lot of damage - is that socially responsible too....

Nope, why should they - its called "having a job", and if the silly Westerners will buy crap, so be it.

Never had a cheap angle grinder with fake bearings - why would they bother, they have modern hi-tech bearing factories - maybe a retailer screwed them down so much they compromised?. And, if it stuffs up, the retailer replaces/refunds it, and writes the cost off against tax. They get crushed and thrown in the dump bin for landfill. Same with even contemporary Japanese electronics.

You mentioned a 1998 Sony CD player, know them well. Surprised it hasn't needed a new laser block by now, Sony are OK as the replacement blocks are relatively cheap, and the quality of the rest of the unit makes it worthwhile to do it. My Philips CD player died after 15 years, searched through the used gear shops till I found a Sony that used a KSS210 laser block. Couldn't buy a new CD player, (except as part of a "system") - every salesman tried to get me to buy a DVD player, as it also plays CDs. (High end "golden ears" audiophile stuff excepted - have trouble with the bullshit factor)

My wife bought a Yaesu FT60r hand held dual band amateur transceiver - I looked at the box, it was made in China. Was surprised, but shouldn't have been.

Regards,

Andrew VK3BFA.

It is harder, but that's not a reason to just give up. If you really want to give up, just denounce citizenship and defect to some shithole and become servant to a dictator. Then all choices are made for you already.

I worked at a repair shop. It's obviously closed now. When VCRs cost $2000 or even a low $500, and there was a parts network, they were worth fixing.

Even if labor was free, there's no way to get any parts for a $30 DVD player these days. These tend to get junked because of the remotes getting lost or broken. It's very wasteful, but that's how people seem to think these days.

so chinese mitre saws are almost there. That's a plus.

I've seen lots of battery packs (for all sorts of devices) where they try to stress "cells made in japan". I'm not sure if this is to hint quality or what the deal is.

There are still light bulb plants in the US. I'm going to try to visit it if I'm ever in the area.

This was brought up when MK (Miller & Kriesel Sound) went out of business. Here's what happened. They got stupid and though they could offshore the cabinets, and possibly rest of the speakers to china, and QC them in the US.

that didn't work, the market was flooded with pirate speakers, all of which sucked, their yields of legit speakers were close to nothing and they folded, as they deserved for even trying that.

The actual drivers are alleged to be from denmark or sweden- I don't recall off hand, but they're still in business.

Their stuff wasn't cheap either (but wasn't nonsense "audiophile" priced). They obviously screwed up somewhere to even try that in the first place.

the majority, yes. furniture/cabinet/tables aren't too hard to get from here, although there is lots of imported stuff now.

the banking people should be stoned in the streets. It might make people think twice about screwing around with lots of money that's not theirs.

That's part of the problem - westeners seem to love crap these days.

It's a DVD player, and there weren't many brands to pick from around then. The laser will eventually burn out as they all do. This model claims to have two lasers, one for the CD player feature which I never use.

The whole surround sound from that time was pretty goofy- separate decoders were required and strange things like 6 channel amps were for sale. Then people realized that powered subwoofers don't need the 6th channel in an amp anyways. So the DVD player actually has a built in decoder with 5+1 audio out, but there's no way to control the volume, and nobody seemed to have ever make 6 channel preamps. At that point you end up with a separate decoder/preamp. The only plus of one of those (Technics made one or two models) is that you can then switch from other analog inputs.