Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

hatrack

(59,436 posts)
Wed May 30, 2018, 08:26 AM May 2018

EPA Won't Act, Lowe's Finally Will: Dumps Paint Strippers Involved In Dozens Of Deaths From Shelves

WASHINGTON — Lowe’s, the large home improvement retailer, announced Tuesday that it will no longer sell paint strippers that contain the chemicals methylene chloride and NMP, which have been blamed in dozens of accidental deaths.

The Obama administration, in its final days, concluded that the two chemicals represented “unreasonable risks” and moved to ban them for use as paint strippers. But the Environmental Protection Agency has not enacted the ban.

For now, Lowe’s says it will voluntarily remove from its shelves 19 products that contain either of the chemicals, which go by such brand names as Klean Strip, Goof Off and Jasco, many of them made by W.M. Barr in Memphis, Tenn. The products will be removed by the end of the year, the company said. .

EDIT

Lowe’s is now making its own voluntary move, after being pressed for over a year by environmental and health groups, as well as family members of victims and several online petition drives. “This is part of the company’s ongoing commitment to bring safer, more affordable options to consumers,” a Lowe’s spokesman said Tuesday.

EDIT/END

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/climate/lowes-drops-paint-strippers-blamed-in-dozens-of-deaths.html

2 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
EPA Won't Act, Lowe's Finally Will: Dumps Paint Strippers Involved In Dozens Of Deaths From Shelves (Original Post) hatrack May 2018 OP
Methylene chloride is metabolized to Carbon Monoxide. That's what kills you. hunter May 2018 #1
I wasn't aware of that, but a quick search on Google Scholar and review of the abstracts... NNadir May 2018 #2

NNadir

(33,368 posts)
2. I wasn't aware of that, but a quick search on Google Scholar and review of the abstracts...
Wed May 30, 2018, 08:58 PM
May 2018

...produces a lot of hits.

It's surprising to me.

I've worked quite a bit with methylene chloride in my career, although truth be told, it was a solvent I tried to avoid, since I generally tried to stay away from anything chlorinated. It was a convenient solvent, if I recall, for making certain kinds of cyclic acetals, but I may have been suffering from CO toxicity when I thought that. And it was hard to beat, with the exception of ethyl ether for rapid drying after extractions.

I always thought that its environmental fate involved transformation to phosgene, and I kind of thought that it would be excreted through breathing so quickly as to avoid being metabolized.

It appears I was wrong.

In my career, I did a lot of phosgene work and never tried to generate phosgene from MeCl2, since it was more convenient to work with phosgene from cyclinders.

In any case there is "triphosgene," which some people use to make phosgene.

I do recall that someone once showed me a solution of phosgene in CHCl2, but I always made my solutions in THF. I never liked chlorinated solvents, not chloroform - which can be explosive with bases - not carbon tet, not chlorinated ethanes.

Thanks for the education.

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Environment & Energy»EPA Won't Act, Lowe's Fin...