LED Products Billed as Eco-Friendly Contain Toxic Metals, Study Finds

There is virtually no solution to this problem when you think about it. Incandescent bulbs use too much current, florescent contains mercury, LED contains lead (presumably from the solder) and arsenic, fire flies are an endangered species, and lord knows Green Peace will not let us go back to whale oil. It's too sooty anyways.

Every element on the Periodic Table causes cancer in California.

Lastly, no one wants to pay the price of goods manufactured in the US because the labor rates and all of the environmental manufacturing regulations jack the price up too much.

So we turn to China and other third-world countries to manufacture these products where there is no quality or environmental controls - but it is really cheap!

Well, cheap for the first payment you make.

The second payment comes when you find out that you have to tear out all your existing Chinese made drywall out of your house and replace it with US made drywall due to outgassing of toxic materials.

The third payment comes when you find out no one wants to take the toxic drywall in their local landfills. So, you are hit with a toxic disposal fee so that it can be put on a sea faring barge and ferried from port to port while each port rejects the trash.

Ultimately, someone offers enough cash to another third world country to take it and the local residents salvage all the materials to make huts and then ultimately make cute souvenirs and American flags, which are subsequently sold to US tourists.

Any remaining material is sold to China, reprocessed, and turned into exports like plastic toys.

Would you rather have that lead, arsenic and other hazardous stuff just lying around somewhere, where it might do some harm?...

Or nicely packaged into a useful little diode that helps you drive your car at night, helps your doctor examine you when you are sick, and lets you learn and be entertained by your computer or your television?

For me, I'll choose the latter.

And some day many years from now when those diodes get used up and get sent to landfills, at least they'll be packaged in something that doesn't leach back into the environment quickly and they'll be isolated at a known location where they could be monitored.

Oladele A. Ogunseitan

Grants:

2008 - 2011. Principal Investigator and Director.
Research and Education in Green Materials.
UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program.
$810,000 Direct Costs.

2005-2010. Principal Investigator.
Engineering Environmentally-benign Electronics:
Convergent Optimization of Materials Use, Consumer Participation, and Government Regulation.
NSF $1,500,000.

2002-2005. Principal Investigator.
Biocomplex Dimensions of Industrial Ecology:
Sectoral Trade-offs in the Management of Toxic Metals Used in Electronics Products.
National Science Foundation.
$125,000.

2002-2005. Principal Investigator.
Managing Toxic Metals in Electronics Waste:
Future Implications of Alternative Policies for the Health, Environment,
and Economy Sectors in California.
$150,000.

Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program. 2003-2006. Co-Principal Investigator.
The Industrial Ecology of the Urban/Ocean Interface:
A Systems Perspective on the Optimization of Best Management Practices.
USC Sea Grant Program.
$160,000.

Just go for the grants and you can spout off any damn thing you want.