California Ban on Wheel-Weights

[Beagle-zebub]

Look at this LA Times story.

Even if this has already been posted, I have a question: are wheel weights actually a threat to the environment? While they certainly might physically fall into the environment, regular lead doesn't leach all that much, and wheel-weights aren't small enough for something to consume. How could this actually contribute significantly to leading in water supplies?

 

[armoredman]

It contributes to the demise of bullet casting! Wheel weights make great bullets.

 

[ReloaderFred]

The whole lead scare thing started with California. They banned lead wheelweights and lead sinkers quite awhile ago. It's a cancer, and it's spreading...........

Fred

 

[TimRB]

From Wikipedia:

"The main sources of poisoning are from ingestion of lead contaminated soil (this is less of a problem in countries that no longer have leaded gasoline) and from ingestion of lead dust or chips from deteriorating lead-based paints."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

So don't eat dirt, and don't eat lead-based paint. The article points out that lead can also be gotten from drinking water where lead plumbing or fixtures are used.

I don't mean to minimize the danger of heavy-metal poisoning, but I think the arguments against lead (like guns) are largely emotional.

Tim

 

[Beagle-zebub]

Well, if it's BS, let's get some data on it, and stop this trend before we lose a source of cheap lead!

 

[jerkface11]

It's just more nonsense to save that stupid oversized buzzard they care so much about.

 

[TimRB]

Oh, it won't matter how much data you gather. They banned lead ammo in Condor areas without a speck of evidence that it was bullets that was harming the birds.

BTW, for the record, note that this is a voluntary agreement by some auto makers and lead weight producers. It's not actual law yet.

Tim

 

[Beagle-zebub]

If you sit back and let it happen, you assure that it does. At least gather evidence to attack this kind of hysteria as a social phenomenon.


Also, where is all that lead going to go? Will we still have access to it, or will it get sold to places like Mexico?

 

[Chief-7700]

One word THE CONDORS a bird that should have been left alone to run it course into extintion.
Chief

 

[Remo-99]

Lead metal itself isn't nearly as dangerous as it's compounds, like lead-oxides used as paint pigments and such.
Recent issues with lead-oxide paints didn't help the general public's view, about anything Lead related.

 

[ants]

Lead alloy is extremely dangerous at 800 feet per second and faster.

 

[GP100man]

i`ve never seen anything wild chewing on a wheelweight or a boolit laying in a berm , but i have seen em ducking & diving for cover though!!!!

GP100man

 

[tlen]

.....I don't mean to minimize the danger of heavy-metal poisoning, but I think the arguments against lead (like guns) are largely emotional...Tim

In liberal states, such as California and the Left coast, facts don't matter when they don't support the main objective. Case in point: Global Warming......

 

[evan price]

Y'all think that these folks really care to not ban wheel weights because it would make casting lead less available? If they could ban your guns they would- don't give them MORE ammo to get lead WW banned!

Statistically speaking, the only people with significant risk of lead poisoning are those who work with lead or children who eat paint chips in old houses. We've had lead around us in plumbing solder for centuries. How many cases of lead posioning show up nowadays? It's a feel-good thing for the liberal enviroweenies who would ban anything made with technology above the Stone Age.

 

[Beagle-zebub]

Y'all think that these folks really care to not ban wheel weights because it would make casting lead less available? If they could ban your guns they would- don't give them MORE ammo to get lead WW banned!

Oh, I have no intention about disclosing why I'm interested in keeping lead WWs legal.

 

[armoredman]

Y'all think that these folks really care to not ban wheel weights because it would make casting lead less available? If they could ban your guns they would- don't give them MORE ammo to get lead WW banned!

They don't need any more fake reasons to ban anything, they will do it to save anything but humans. They probably think casting bullets meaning interviewing stars to play ammunition in a new movie.

 

[Vacek]

Lead, like most metals, has a very low KSP (solubility product constant) especially in non-acidic alkaline) conditions. Most western soils have alkaline >7.5 pH due to a lot of free CaCO3 in our soils. In the east they add CaCO3 (lime) to their soils because they tend to become acidic over time.

Anyway, in an alkaline soil the likelihood of lead in any significant amount leaching into the environment is very low. Especially an object as a wheelweight, sinker, or bullet. The actual surface area exposed (to disassociate) is very small vs the mass. As a result, people are as usual making policy without understanding the science.

One wonders about the "problem" of scavengers eating lead on wounded animals or left over bullets after gutting. If that made animals extinct then why didn't all of the USA scavengers not go extinct during the mid-late 19th century when millions of bison carcass were laying around full of 45-60 caliber bullets in them? You would think that all of the coyotes, buzzards, and condors would have long died away due to lead poison???????????

 

[Chief-7700]

Vacek, May I use what you have posted to send to my local newspaper since I live only 10 Condor miles from where the humans are attempting to save this dying bird. Here is one for you during the Basin Complex Fire in Big Sur,CA this summer all the condor chicks were air evaced by a US Coast Guard Helo. Wonder that that ride cost the taxpayers???????
Chief

 

[Vacek]

No problem. Check my grammer and spelling please. I am typing sans the use of my middle finger since I cut it slicing up some beef for jerky.

 

[ants]

Oooh, sorry to hear that Vacek. But, good jerky is worth the sacrifice. Keep it clean and let it breath. I mean the finger, but I guess that's good advice for the meat, too.

[Erase this post after you read it, because it probably won't self-destruct. Elemental copper is just about as toxic as elemental lead in cetain environments. That's why they used copper plating on ship hulls in the 19th century, so barnacles died before they could attach; and that's why they banned copper hulls in the 20th century, because everything else in the bay died too. Of course, that's in a saline marine environment, not a carbonate or sulfate soil. The point is that copper is no better than lead, but both are fairly inert in a dead carcass. But do you notice what they use to replace lead in those condor areas? Yep, solid copper bullets. Biology generally makes sense, but state laws don't. Go figure. Now, erase this post before Arnold reads it. Go on, erase it now.]

 

[ants]

Chief-7700
You do realize that all these laws are for the preservation of legislators, not the preservation of birds.
I'm just saying, a scavenger is a scavenger...
And a scavenger is what a scavenger does...

 

[gwalchmai]

Anyone ever hear of RoHS? Coming to an EPA near you. Start countdown in about seven days.

 

[rfwobbly]

When $75 tires last only 10 miles due to zero availability of balancing weights, there may be a reversal.

 

[ranger335v]

"are wheel weights actually a threat to the environment?"

No. In no way at all, as even most fools would realise.

CA polliticians are even dummer than most fools, so lead (and a LOT of other harmless stuff) terrifies them. Doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to. Anything they are afraid of gets silly laws enacted so they can feel like they have "done something for the environment."

Other state's fools then follow the CA fool's leadership. It's like, you know, like Valley talk, you know? It's all stupid but stupidity spreads like kudzu.

 

[oneounceload]

California should ban cars, or at least cars that use wheels and tires.......

I would like to know where this expert got his numbers about 500,000 pounds falling off cars in California - every damn person would be driving around with unbalanced tires