Bad Science!

[luna_torquill]

Just in case anyone else is wondering where the "OMG if an LED shatters in your home you need a hazmat suit to clean it up!!1!" meme is coming from:

LED products billed as eco-friendly contain toxic metals, study findsIt's an important study; LEDs appear to have more than the legal amounts of lead, and other heavy metals such as arsenic can be a

Comments

[doktor_weasel]

Never mind the fact that LEDs are pretty damn hard to break. They're pretty much a solid lump of plastic, not a hollow fragile shell. And the toxic materials aren't just rattling around free.

I've heard the hazmat claim about CFLs, but it just comes from uninformed advice to a panicked person. This really is a sloppy piece.

[foogod]

Actually, CFLs do have a not-insubstantial quantity of mercury inside them which can pose a health risk if not handled properly, so there are legitimate "hazmat" concerns regarding them (which for adults basically boils down to "if you break a CFL, don't get down and sniff the carpet where it broke", but I do agree with some of the warnings against using them in areas infants frequent, etc.)

I do agree, though, that the silliest part about the LED scare is arguably the whole "when you break an LED" part.. I know from experience you can drive over those things with cars and they usually come out fine...

[doktor_weasel]

I'm not saying that CFLs don't pose any risk, what I'm saying is they've been dramatically overblown in the past

[mikz]

Agree with all of the above. And I'm pretty sure if you take the 'C' out of CFL, and talk about devices that have been over our heads millions of times since before any of us were born, it'll all seem even sillier. But then there'd be one less scare story.

Still trying to convince somebody on FaceBook that the United States isn't going to have an epidemic of measles-related deaths after an incident at an airport over the weekend, too.