4 ms·

Also, if you don't give a shit about your customers, lead paint often dries faster, is more durable, and is cheaper than alternatives. I suspect this is a more

by x0x0 7y ago

Also, if you don't give a shit about your customers, lead paint often dries faster, is more durable, and is cheaper than alternatives. I suspect this is a more common reason. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/worldbusiness/10iht-lead.5.7455679.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/worldbusiness/10...

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Kids' toys aside, using the lowest cost option that satisfies your customers' requirements sounds a lot like "giving a shit" to me. The fact that lead paint is totally banned (here in the US) instead of just banned in paint marketed for use on/in inhabitable structures and allowed with warning labels required is asinine. There's tons of chemicals out there that will screw up kids and adults if they eat them and we don't ban them. We just let the civil court system assign appropriate judgements to anyone dumb enough to use them on things that will come in close enough contact with people to be harmful. Edit: The stereotypical effect of lead exposure is that it makes people stupid. I hope you people appreciate the irony in the fact that we can't have a serious discussion about the pros and cons of lead paint.
- btown 7y ago
  How do you enforce this? How can a consumer know that their contractor isn’t cutting corners? Sometimes the only solution is to stop the problem at its source.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    How does a consumer ever know their someone they've hired isn't cutting corners? When you pay for asbestos remediation how do you know they actually did it right? When you pay an accountant how do you know they're not half-assing it? When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. There's a bunch of incentives business owners who provide services operate within and they generally align to doing things the right way.
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      > When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. Really? You're posting on a thread about Amazon doing a wrong thing, which they've been doing for the greater part of a decade at this point. Maybe Amazon the company will be punished for this, but the people who made these decisions have probably already made millions and can just move on to another company with no repercussions. The idea that it's somehow more lucrative to do the right thing is ridiculous.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      > When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. If this were true, no professional would ever do something wrong, cut corners, etc. Which would be nice. It's a nice picture of how things should work. But they don't.
- ineedasername 7y ago
  What would be a use case for lead paint that isn't satisfied by other options and isn't used somewhere people will be exposed to it? It's not just kids & through eating it that it can be absorbed. Being around it throughout normal environmental wear & tear is enough for exposure, enough that pregnant women are advised against any exposure at all. As for the general topic of harmful chemicals, it isn't a choice between proactive prevention and after-the-fact punishment. There can be both, working in concert.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Satisfied at what price point? Everything has a cost. Every dollar society spends on one thing is a dollar society can't use on another thing. Nobody is going to be "exposed" to a highway overpass or the hull of a ship or some chemical storage tank outside a factory enough for it to measurably affect anyone. Why can't we paint it in lead if that lasts longer for a given price point? There's all sorts of things that are out there in the world that are not interacted with enough to affect anyone in any measurable way (obviously assuming the people who work with the lead paint when wet follow proper procedures).
    - dv_dt 7y ago
      You can't paint only some things in lead on a whole economy scale for similar reasons to Amazon not wanting to enforce separated items in warehouses. As long as "approved for tanks" lead paint is in the supply chain, who exactly keeps the use only to tanks. There are sufficiently durable alternatives that the lowest cost is to outright ban lead paint instead of setting up an enforcement framework to chase lead paint abuse while also paying added costs for after effects of easier cheating.
      - mikestew 7y ago
        When I was a teenager, we painted our barn with lead paint. Let's just say that it didn't come from the local Sherwin-Williams. If it's for sale anywhere, the gray/black market will take care of the rest.
    - 7y ago

by x0x0 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Kids' toys aside, using the lowest cost option that satisfies your customers' requirements sounds a lot like "giving a shit" to me. The fact that lead paint is totally banned (here in the US) instead of just banned in paint marketed for use on/in inhabitable structures and allowed with warning labels required is asinine. There's tons of chemicals out there that will screw up kids and adults if they eat them and we don't ban them. We just let the civil court system assign appropriate judgements to anyone dumb enough to use them on things that will come in close enough contact with people to be harmful. Edit: The stereotypical effect of lead exposure is that it makes people stupid. I hope you people appreciate the irony in the fact that we can't have a serious discussion about the pros and cons of lead paint.

btown 7y ago
How do you enforce this? How can a consumer know that their contractor isn’t cutting corners? Sometimes the only solution is to stop the problem at its source.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  How does a consumer ever know their someone they've hired isn't cutting corners? When you pay for asbestos remediation how do you know they actually did it right? When you pay an accountant how do you know they're not half-assing it? When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. There's a bunch of incentives business owners who provide services operate within and they generally align to doing things the right way.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. Really? You're posting on a thread about Amazon doing a wrong thing, which they've been doing for the greater part of a decade at this point. Maybe Amazon the company will be punished for this, but the people who made these decisions have probably already made millions and can just move on to another company with no repercussions. The idea that it's somehow more lucrative to do the right thing is ridiculous.
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    > When you make your living doing a thing it's far more lucrative to do things right than to do them wrong. If this were true, no professional would ever do something wrong, cut corners, etc. Which would be nice. It's a nice picture of how things should work. But they don't.
ineedasername 7y ago
What would be a use case for lead paint that isn't satisfied by other options and isn't used somewhere people will be exposed to it? It's not just kids & through eating it that it can be absorbed. Being around it throughout normal environmental wear & tear is enough for exposure, enough that pregnant women are advised against any exposure at all. As for the general topic of harmful chemicals, it isn't a choice between proactive prevention and after-the-fact punishment. There can be both, working in concert.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Satisfied at what price point? Everything has a cost. Every dollar society spends on one thing is a dollar society can't use on another thing. Nobody is going to be "exposed" to a highway overpass or the hull of a ship or some chemical storage tank outside a factory enough for it to measurably affect anyone. Why can't we paint it in lead if that lasts longer for a given price point? There's all sorts of things that are out there in the world that are not interacted with enough to affect anyone in any measurable way (obviously assuming the people who work with the lead paint when wet follow proper procedures).
  - dv_dt 7y ago
    You can't paint only some things in lead on a whole economy scale for similar reasons to Amazon not wanting to enforce separated items in warehouses. As long as "approved for tanks" lead paint is in the supply chain, who exactly keeps the use only to tanks. There are sufficiently durable alternatives that the lowest cost is to outright ban lead paint instead of setting up an enforcement framework to chase lead paint abuse while also paying added costs for after effects of easier cheating.
    - mikestew 7y ago
      When I was a teenager, we painted our barn with lead paint. Let's just say that it didn't come from the local Sherwin-Williams. If it's for sale anywhere, the gray/black market will take care of the rest.
  - 7y ago