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> The benzene content of typical gasoline is 0.76% by mass (gasoline composition). A spill of 10 gallons of gasoline (only 0.1% of the 10,000 gallon tank, a qua
by refibrillator 3y ago
> The benzene content of typical gasoline is 0.76% by mass (gasoline composition). A spill of 10 gallons of gasoline (only 0.1% of the 10,000 gallon tank, a quantity undetectable by manual gauging and inventory control) contains about 230 grams of benzene. The EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for benzene is 5 parts per billion (ppb), or 5 micrograms per liter, in drinking water. The density of gasoline is about 0.8 g/mL, so the benzene in a 10 gallon gasoline leak can contaminate about 46 million liters, or 12 million gallons of water
> In 1983, the EPA declared leaking tanks a serious threat to groundwater, and Congress soon stepped in with new regulations. One of the largest spills was in Brooklyn, where a 17 million-gallon pool of oil gradually collected beneath a Mobil gas station — a larger spill than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989
Yikes, never heard about that. Yet another negative externality slipping through the cracks. Profits collected, responsibility socialized.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dzhiurgis 3y agoRemember the outrage last year when some sunscreen was found to have few PPM of benzene? The outrage from that FUD and people stopping use of sunscreen altogether likely caused more damage than benzene itself.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoNah, sunscreens are way more harmful than sun exposure itself. It's the sunscreen that will cause the cancer eventually. Here's the chain of events: young patient gets bad sunburn, sees doctor. Doctor sympathizes and warns patient of dire consequences of not using sunblock 100% of the time. Patient agrees and mostly uses sunblock for several decades, forgets a few times and gets more sunburns. In fact, patient is way more likely to be exposed to powerful sunlight because of the invincibility conferred by sunblock. Patient gets cancer from substances in sunblock, and feels terribly guilty for not using it because a few sunburns must have given her skin cancer.
- EatingWithForks 3y agoThe chain of events doesn't form a causal relationship that substances in sunblock cause cancer. It just expresses someone might use sunblock more often after the advice from a doctor.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoYes; very self-serving recommendation, isn't it?
- EatingWithForks 3y agoNo, In mean quite literally the described situation does not have anything to do with whether or not sunblock itself causes cancer. Like a whole paragraph of scenario was provided and then out of nowhere "and then they get cancer from chemicals in sunblock". Which chemicals, specifically? What do we do about the fact that nearly all women are recommended sunblock daily in nearly all beauty regimens for decades and yet facial skin cancers aren't gendered?
- dzhiurgis 3y agoReplying to EatingWithForks > facial skin cancers aren't gendered? So that also means sunscreen doesn't work either?
- tkanarsky 3y agoIs this claim substantiated? I've seen all sorts of opinions ranging from "use European sunscreens containing non-FDA-approved UVA filters" to "just rub lard on skin, drink raw milk, and lift heavy weights". I feel like chemical sunscreens have been ubiquitous enough for long enough that any correlation in skin cancer rates would have been long pointed out by now.
- arrosenberg 3y agoNo, they are an idiot. UV light causes various mutations at the DNA level, which accumulate over time and can lead to skin cancer. Skin cancers have some of the highest number of mutations of any form of cancer.
- nostrebored 3y agoThe outrage was that 1. Sunscreen has chemicals which bioaccumulate with use and 2. No testing had been done on sunscreen as it was assumed that it was safe as a topical medication. Combine that with the fact that sunscreen has not been shown to cause any population wide reduction in skin cancer prevalence and endemic vitamin D deficiency. I think that people have a right to be mad?
- moffkalast 3y agoDo people really wear sunscreen for cancer prevention and to get more vitamin D? I would imagine it's more about preventing painful ass burns (place hyphen as you wish) and blocking UV skin damage that accelerates aging.
- loeg 3y agoYes, there are people concerned about skin cancer. For an anecdote, my uncle had skin cancer three times and became very conservative about always wearing hats and sunscreen.
- EdwardDiego 3y agoIn the Southern Hemisphere (especially the Anglosphere countries due to our heritage of pasty white people), it's to prevent sunburn and especially cancer. Yeah, sunburn sucks, but thanks to the ozone hole that forms over Antarctica and then drifts northwards, melanoma is very high. And so is the sunburn risk, you can burn in 10 minutes here, but repeated sunburn increases melanoma risk.
- lostlogin 3y agoIt’s seriously grim at times - the burn time drops to 5-10 minutes and you want to mow the lawn. Suncream stinging your eyes you get it done. And you still get burnt, even with it on. Car paint fades fast and everything plastic or fabric gets destroyed by UV in a year or so.
- 3y ago
- hulitu 3y agoThere is a lot of food which can contain benzene. Because it contains sodium benzoate that in some conditions leads to benzene. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_benzoate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_benzoate
- SoftTalker 3y agoA carbon filter for your drinking water will deal with benzene and other organic compounds
- flashback2199 3y agoThe public should never be required to filter out pollution, especially from basic necessities such as water.
- willcipriano 3y agoMorally sure, but the cost of trusting the authorities on this one is too high.
- reaperman 3y agoIn most developed areas consumers don’t have to. The utility filters out benzene at the plant and it doesn’t leak into the water supply pipes except possibly during “boil water” advisories which are rolled out when water pressure drops enough for the pipes to leak in rather than only leak out.
- moffkalast 3y agoAh yes, let's equip every home with a reverse osmosis machine so oil companies can spill stuff everywhere they please.
- 3y ago
- kortilla 3y ago>Profits collected, responsibility socialized. This happens literally any time someone makes a mistake somewhere that doesn’t get caught. It’s not some magic “gotcha” that only applies to these types of industries and anecdotes are not evidence that an industry depends on it. Here are other examples of people “privatizing the profits while socializing the losses”: - a bad teacher who doesn’t lose their job for teaching children incorrect things. - a cook that doesn’t get fired when you get food poisoning. - a doctor that makes a negligent mistake and causes a permanent injury or death without getting caught. The examples are endless and scale from individuals up through corporations and governments across every industry and mode of governance. I recommend you don’t use the phrase if you don’t want to look dumb because it’s a pretty strong indicator of a lack of critical thinking skills.
- Retric 3y agoIn all of those cases the harm is tiny by comparison. It takes a shockingly small rate of food poisoning at a major chain to become national news.
- kortilla 3y ago>In all of those cases the harm is tiny by comparison. No, these are all examples where the harm is significant when it’s scaled up to the larger population because they are so common. Bad education accumulates in one of the worst feedback loops of destruction you can get (dumb people vote for more dumb people supporting education focused on dumb things). >It takes a shockingly small rate of food poisoning at a major chain to become national news. the vast majority is never traced back to a restaurant because it’s written off as “24 hour flu”. It only makes national news on the rare occasions where it can and is traced back. This is reserved for food poisoning bad enough to cause hospitalization and/or death.
- Retric 3y agoIndividual subpar teachers don’t make a huge difference in education due to the redundancy on our education system. Curriculum is designed so if students learn nothing in say 5th grade not much changes. A school system filled with bad teachers is a systemic failure. Again food poisoning without major consequences isn’t a big deal. Nationwide around 3,000 people in the US die from food poisoning, mostly from poor food safety at home. By comparison air pollution kills around 20-100 thousand people every year in the US, the scale of harm from all forms of pollution is vast but gets rolled up into cancer into a few other diseases so we don’t talk about it much. PS: Pollution death statistics are really difficult to quantify accurately. Non smoking related long cancers are significant which mean some people who smoke get lung cancer from non smoking related causes. Modeling it is however dependent on what assumptions you make.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]