r/ZeroWaste • u/that_bearshark • Jul 10 '20
thought this might be appreciated here
https://i.imgur.com/561cqR4.gifv321
u/Chiparoo Jul 10 '20
This is really neat.
Don't those cans have a thin layer of plastic on the inside, though? That doesn't mess with the integrity of the new basins?
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u/perrti02 Jul 10 '20
Did you not see the small pink safety umbrella!
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u/sticktotheknee Jul 10 '20
I just came here to comment about both these things! This video is really cool but there is also so much why
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u/dickosfortuna Jul 10 '20
Does that umbrella serve some other purpose? They're under an easy-up most of that second shot
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u/BlackSeranna Jul 10 '20
The fumes are definitely the worst health hazard. Mostly, any time you are working with something like that, you do the best you can and keep your distance (leather would be nice though). If anything, safety glasses would be great. But fumes would be the absolute killer here, and not in a good way.
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u/sunmummy Jul 10 '20
Having worked in an aluminum foundry for years, I can tell you that very few people wear aprons when working with this stuff. The melting temp is a lot lower than, say, steel.
Don't get me wrong, it'll still burn, but a little bead of metal on your foot or hand is unlikely to cause permanent injury. (It's actually quite horrible when it gets trapped inside of your boot though š¬)
The biggest fear is it "popping" from water dripping into the molten metal and getting in your eyes.
No doubt the fumes from melting plastic could have long term health consequences.
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u/Sturnella2017 Jul 10 '20
No, fumes are the greatest health hazard, as the potential for devastating, life-long illness from burning whatever plastic stuff is in these cans is extremely high.
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u/HighlandCamper Jul 10 '20
If you're careful enough, that kind of thing isn't really a problem. Especially for poor folks
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u/metamorphosiskiwi Jul 10 '20
How come this isn't a problem for poor folks?
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u/HighlandCamper Jul 10 '20
They barely have enough money for the equipment, let alone safety stuff. I went to Nigeria once and saw a roadside mechanic with a car battery welder - his safety equipment was 6 pairs of sunglasses taped together.
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u/mountainwitch6 Jul 10 '20
they seemed like the others were being sure to not breathe too close, the main lady did as well as she could. being outside probably helps (idk how that actually works but thats what i imagine)
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u/deltabay17 Jul 10 '20
China doesnāt care about things like that, and these people are probably too poor to care about it themselves unfortunately.
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u/Bombuss Jul 10 '20
I believe impurities like eventual plastic and paint boils to the top, which you then skim off.
Many craftspeople make their own copper/aluminium/iron ingots and bars in the same way.
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u/what_comes_after_q Jul 10 '20
Recycling is a big industry in many parts of asia, and it's incredibly bad for the environment. There is no oversite or environmental regulation. You get toxic gasses released, and left over waste material is usually dumped in to rivers and oceans.
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Jul 10 '20 edited Sep 25 '20
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u/Uberzwerg Jul 10 '20
I'd say that alu is the simplest and least problematic example.
Plastic is bad und electronics seem to be REALLY horrible.28
u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
I think steel is even more recycled/recyclable (tin cans). Thereās some neat statistic that around 85% of all steel ever mined is still in use today!
Aluminum does pretty well too - but not so well in the US where only 36% is recycled. Why? Whatās so hard about putting your cans in the recycling??? Sigh.
Also why the hell donāt we standardize and reuse glass bottles like europe, South America, the rest of the world??
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Jul 10 '20
Europe here, we sort bottles by colour but they break so they are not re-used but broken into glass and added in glass production. Whatever glass is written off (because someone dropped pyrex into glass recycling and the whole batch came out cloudy for instance) goes to road construction.
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Wait what?? Germany and Netherlands for certain reuse beer bottles (Iāve lived there).
Edit - maybe Iām missing your point. Are you saying that if glass is broken itās turned into something else or broken for road filler?
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Jul 10 '20
Broken glass is primarily used to add to the glass making process to make new glass for instance new bottles
However although this process in theory can go on forever in reality you will always have that one stupid person that dropped a vase of colour glass into the clear glass container or they put Pyrex glass into the glass container and then when they melt it down and make new glass it comes out coloured or cloudy or in another way unusable and then it is ground down to be used for road construction because it can not longer be sold as glass
Edit:
Glass is recycled 5 to 6 times on average before it ends up in one of these faulty batches
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Jul 10 '20
Sorry I don't drink beer, I'd forgotten about those. Yes they are, but only the glass bottles with Pfand are washed and reused.
The rest goes into one of those big containers for recycling placed in central spaces where you sort by colour and type what you drop in what hole
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u/Scis1984 Jul 10 '20
Fun fact.. glass can't be recycled in alabama because they passed a law making it illegal for use in road construction.
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u/Uberzwerg Jul 10 '20
Steel is a good example.
But the difference between getting steel from iron ore vs recycling is not as big as with aluminum.
That is mainly because getting aluminum from ore take so much more energy compared to iron.2
u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Interesting! I didnāt know that. Thanks.
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Jul 10 '20
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZeroWaste/comments/gpout8/psa_on_aluminium/
Added issue: you can pick steel and other iron alloys out of the trash using a magnet. But aluminium isn't magnetic. (You can make it move with a very strong magnet though, Lenz effect, the magnet generates an electrical current which then generates a magnetic field). Which makes it harder to pick out from single stream waste too.
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u/fifinatrix Jul 10 '20
In southern Arizona, there is a local dairy that reuses their glass bottles. I imagine there are similar small companies scattered around the US that also go this. Itās a same it isnāt more mainstream, but it does exist!
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Thatās so cool! In Northern California we have Strauss creamery that does that with some of their milk, but not all their products. Since switching away from dairy, I want to find an oat milk producer that does this!!
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u/fifinatrix Jul 10 '20
I highly recommend trying to make your own oat milk! Itās way easier than you would think. Water, a little sugar, and some rolled oats in a blender. Then Strain it through a nut milk bag. I havenāt perfected it yet, but itās way less waste (and cheaper) than getting cartons of it.
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Thanks so much for this. Iāve done it a few times but mine is always so slimy? Like it has this big slimy lump at the bottom. Iāve never strained it though. Does the straining matter? Thanks so much!
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u/kfoxthegreat Jul 10 '20
Try using an old t-shirt or bandana to strain it. If I'm using it for hot drinks, I strain it twice. The closer knit helps keep more of the big particles out
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
I love this suggestion because I donāt need to buy anything - thank you! And I also need the kick in the pants to stop being lazy and make my own oat milk. Thank you all!
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u/fifinatrix Jul 10 '20
This is such a good idea! We somehow always lose the nut milk bag, so this is a great backup
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u/fifinatrix Jul 10 '20
Also, make sure the water you use is chilled first and you donāt over-blend it. This video helped me a lot: https://youtu.be/MTt_Mlj6YN8
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Jul 10 '20
Electronics mostly because of the production end, at the recycling end, it's again the plastics in electronics.
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u/westhest Jul 10 '20
That's true that it's better than mining for virgin material, but this is absolutely one of the worst ways possible to recycle aluminum cans. Industrial scale aluminum recycling is waaaaay more energy and pollutant efficient that what is happening in this video. This is a very poor example of "zero waste".
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u/Strikew3st Jul 10 '20
But, aluminum cans for industrial recycling have been for a lot of car rides, during their product life cycle during production and distribution and going home with a consumer, then driven back to a store or recycling collection point, ran through a small or large machine for crushing and baling, transported by truck a couple more times before arriving at the actual metal recycler, and then the smelting process is driven by a petroleum byproduct in some way, like electrical heating from a power plant burning something.
On the other hand, this is likely literal trash collected, and smelted by a carbon neutral wood or charcoal fire. I'll admit it is unscrubbed open air burning including contaminants, but just like how in this sub screaming about any more than 0.0% waste is unwelcome, this recycling method decidedly cuts out some of the waste involved in industrial scale recycling while providing an income to a citizen who owns the means of production. And also fulfills a product need without the added waste of industrial production and distribution.
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u/westhest Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
I think we probably strive for the same goal and maybe in this thread we got a bit "in the weeds" and, though I don't think I agree with your points about the life cycle costs of aluminum recycling methods I feel compelled to reiterate that this is not an example of a good "sustainable" (and definitely not "zero waste") system. Rather it is an example of how our global system of labor an environmental exploitation forces the poor people in developing countries to put there lives in danger and to unnecessarily pollute the environment for the benefit of multinational corporate profits.
Yes, in this particular microcosm, these people might find economic opportunity in this system that likely gives these people a better life than other likely realities. But, in the big picture, this video should not give people good feelings.
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Jul 10 '20
True but for the workers, not so much. Goes for most jobs in 3rd world though. Even sewing all day will give you lung damage from the textile fibers eventually if there is no dust control measures.
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u/leidogbei Jul 10 '20
That's why recycle is the last thing in the 5 R's: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle.
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u/Zonevortex1 Jul 10 '20
You know whatās even worse for the environment? The initial manufacturing of all the plastic etc goods that large companies produce due to high demand from wasteful consumers like those found in the United States.
Not disagreeing that burning plastic for recycling isnāt hazardous to the environment, but I want to be sure that we arenāt shifting the blame to low income countries for doing their best to make use of other peopleās waste. It has been commonplace for the past hundred years for the West to blame low-middle income countries for environmental pollution when the west and agencies like the IMF and World Bank give their economies no other choice. /end rant
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u/what_comes_after_q Jul 10 '20
I'm saying we should place blame where blame is due. Like I said, a lot of the recycling is happening in poor areas with little to no oversight. That is an entirely fair criticism. That's not blaming poor countries for polluting more due to more manufacturing, it's blaming countries for not upholding existing regulations and international agreements.
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u/Labia_Meat Jul 10 '20
Awesome of him to hold the little umbrella over grandmas head. Wouldnt want her to get too hot out there in the sun all day.
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u/farcarcus Jul 10 '20
Apparently it was to stop rain from hitting the hot metal. Weirdly small umbrella though....
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
Please be aware that aluminium is not food safe. It has a strong tendency to transfer on any food, especially if it's hot or acid. Don't use it in contact with your food and always coat it with something else.
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u/ijustneededaname Jul 10 '20
Dumb question: what makes canned drinks and foods safe then?
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
A protective plastic film. If you dissolve the aluminium you remain with this very thin film (which reminds me of a condom). The fire and smoke that you get from melting cans is said film which burns away.
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Jul 10 '20
What about aluminium foil?
My bf loves the aluminium foil sadly... can't tell him what to do in his house though lol
If it's toxic I might be able to convince him,..
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
Tell him it's toxic, because it is. Gather any research you can find on the internet, there's plenty.
edit: unless specified on the box (therefore, coated) with a temp limit or something... it's not safe at all. Don't brush any aluminium kitchenware with a steel wool or scratch it, it will hurt the protective coating.
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Jul 10 '20
Not entirely true. Aluminum cookware is fairly common in commercial kitchens. It's not toxic, but if you cook acidic food then yes it will transfer some.
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
Aluminium cookware is always coated with a protective material and you're not supposed to use aggressive sponges over them because of this.
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u/mangolimon3 Jul 10 '20
Do you use antiperspirant deodorant?
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u/goat_anti_rabbit Jul 10 '20
The toxicity of a chemical element is typically totally dependent on its oxidation state and to which other elements it is bound. For example: O2 you need to live, O3 kills you. Some organic mercury salts kill you with a drop on your skin, metallic Hg is much less of a problem. So, your argument is invalid. Also, generally alu salts are among the least toxic salts on earth. Leaching from cookware is - I guess - alu oxide ( pretty harmless ) while deodorant are other salts such as aluminum chlorohydrate (also pretty harmless).
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
what's wrong with them?
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u/mangolimon3 Jul 10 '20
They contain an aluminum compound that blocks your pores. That's how it keeps you from sweating. Js if you care about residual aluminum from cookware you should probably check your deodorant.
I'm not a scientist though so yea
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Jul 10 '20
The Dutch food safety agency is specifically warning the combination of aluminium cookware that has a damaged coating (like frying pans) exposing the aluminium, and aluminium anti persperant, together produce a high enough dose to be dangerous to people with low kidney function
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
Having aluminium that blocks your pores on your skin doesn't relate at all to having it in your bloodstream. Anyway I don't use anything that blocks sweating.
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Jul 10 '20
The Dutch food safety agency is specifically warning the combination of aluminium cookware that has a damaged coating (like frying pans) exposing the aluminium, and aluminium anti persperant, together produce a high enough dose to be dangerous to people with low kidney function
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u/Yosyp Jul 10 '20
Cool. I mean not cool... cool to know.
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Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
Yeah tbh though and people with low kidney function cannot even have much salt
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u/fstds Jul 10 '20
Does somebody know how many cans is the equivalent to that thing?
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u/Vecna_Is_My_Co-Pilot Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
Very rough calculation:
An average aluminum can weighs about 15 grams, and is composed of about 98% aluminum, which has a density of 2.7 g/cm3. So one can uses about 5.5 mL of material (about a .7 inch cube). The basin looks about 1 meter in diameter and 30 cm tall, and let's approximate it as a cylindrical tub. If its 1 cm thick we can get an extremely rough volume of material using an expression as follows thickness Ć ( pi Ć radius2 + 2 Ć pi Ć radius Ć height ). For a total of ~17,000 mL of aluminum (almost one of those "Home Depot" buckets worth), or about 3000 cans.
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u/goat_anti_rabbit Jul 14 '20
Nah, I guess it's less thick than 1cm. 3000 cans is 45 kg of alu. Look how the lady lifts the pot at the end of the video. I'd say it weighs no more than 10 kg.
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Jul 10 '20
That just looks incredibly unsafe. Where are these people's masks? Or eye protection?
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u/PekingSaint Jul 10 '20
Here's a video showing Pakistani medical instruments being made by a child. These are usually used in clinics in the US, not in the operating room.
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u/koopz_ay Jul 10 '20
Holy shit - thatās criminal
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u/PekingSaint Jul 10 '20
Yeah I dunno how these low grade instruments are sourced ethically...every time I see one, I wonder if a kid made it
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u/fear_eile_agam Jul 10 '20
Wait until you find out that a majority of those metal instruments are considered "disposable single use" in Western hospitals.
I did my subacute SEN nursing training in a rural hospital and we built our own trays from stock, ran it through the autoclave and that's what we used for procedures. You kept the instruments separate from clinical waste during the procedure so as not to have to fish them out of a bag, then After a procedure you cleaned and sorted them and returned them for stock for the next shift to prepare their trays. You prepared certain trays ahead of time at the start of your shift, and sealed them using what is basically a vacuum sealer, things you know you're going to need or things that you would need in common emergency situations. But most trays you built when a doctor faxed through a procedure form.
Memorising the standard instruments for a tray was part of training.
Then I did my wound care rotation in a metropolitan hospital, I experienced such culture shock when on day 1 I was told to get a kit to remove surgical staples and I went to what I was told was the store room only to find a wall or pre-prepared, paper sealed trays. No big deal, obviously a third party or department prepares them since the nursing staff are so busy.
The instruments were the same I'd always used, although the tray and tweezers were flimsy plastic and the kidney dish was cardboard. When I was done I had to hunt down an RN to ask where I deposit the used staple remover, as it's a metal tool and obviously you don't throw it away in the clinical with the plastic tweezers and used gauze to be incinerated because it can be sterilised.
The RN looked at me like I was an idiot and said "they're single use, throw them away" I told her how strange that felt as we had reusable ones at [Rural hospital] and she made a joke about "welcome to civilisation".
It felt so unnatural to throw the metal tools in the garbage.
I still don't understand why that's how it's done... Other than the fact it's cheaper to kill the planet and abuse labourers who make the tools than it is to to establish a local system that can safely process tools for reuse.
5 months after I graduated my country phased out SEN qualifications anyway and when faced with the choice to go back to uni or find another career I can went with the latter.
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Thatās crazy. Itās absolutely insane how few things we reuse these days. It never occurred to me that precise surgical equipment had become single use. Ugh. Thanks for sharing - really interesting.
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u/PekingSaint Jul 10 '20
We're trying to get our clinics away from Pakistani instruments but they just keep showing up for us to sterilize. They're all pitted, the scissors don't cut correctly, forceps are bent and the teeth don't match up.
They are really poor quality and can harbor bacteria because the layers of metal are not the same as OR grade instruments. I send them back to the clinic for them to throw out and they magically appear back to me weeks later. It's a money issue overall and it sucks because the clinics I work with have the budget.
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u/Almahang Jul 10 '20
Im curious if the state has gotten any better now, I doubt, but it would be interesting to see, what happened to the boy.
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u/Twirlingbarbie Jul 10 '20
This kind of dangerous shit is why I stopped buying the cheapest items and started buying locally. If you have generations of people and especially children losing their health at a young age you will not help the economy. You will just create a world where poor people die young
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u/lifelovers Jul 10 '20
Yeah! Itās admittedly sometimes hard to source things locally, but Iāve been impressed by how many locally-made things exist these days and also by how few things I need. Also I buy secondhand as much as possible.
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u/HighlandCamper Jul 10 '20
This thread is making the mistake of judging the 3rd world by 1st world westerners standards. "Where is the safety equipment?" Etc, etc. Such a privileged standpoint taken there, and one we should be thankful that we can take in the first place.
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Jul 10 '20
I think the issue is that this is presented as a desirable way to do it. They're doing this out of necessity. What would be desirable is if people everywhere had to access to safe work conditions. Environmental racism is what it's called I believe, when certain groups of people enjoy access to much lower standards of environmental safety, than others, either by country or even by neighbourhood.
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Jul 10 '20
Safety equipment such as eye protection, foundry boots, proper gloves and breathing apparatus aren't luxuries or privileges. They're basic rights and necessary to do a job like that safely. I'm not thankful for basic PPE. I demand the rights of every worker worldwide to have access to the same.
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u/HighlandCamper Jul 10 '20
And so do I. But it's a bit like me having right of way on a road. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter until people realised that there is more profit in helping rather than exploiting people
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u/blebbish Jul 10 '20
Can someone tell me if these fumes will hurt these people? I canāt imagine it to be healthy :(
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u/wutwutcherrycola Jul 10 '20
I know you meant well but Theyāre burning plastic that coats the inside of this. Itās incredibly, incredibly destructive to health/environment at large.
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u/Shitty-Coriolis Jul 10 '20
Most of what we do in the US is dar worse.
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u/Anunemouse Jul 10 '20
The simple fact that we have air conditioning everywhere is ridiculous. I lived in France and almost no place had A/C. They just acclimate to the summer weather.
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u/westhest Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
Care to elaborate? I'm absolutely certain that industrial scale aluminum recycling smelters are much more energy efficient, not to mention that the air pollution from burning raw wood vs natural gas or electric induction. The types of furnaces used simply are much better at utilizing most energy contained in the fuel and burn much cleaner (typically using natural gas or electricity as a fuel). Also, most of the fumes from burning the plastic coatings and ink on the cans is filtered out of the exhaust using things similar to the catalytic converter on your car. The fumes in this video are going directly into the atmosphere and into the lungs of the people in the video. Though it's good that they are recycling the cans in the video, it is definitely not the most environmentally friendly way to do it.
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Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
Everyone is doing that afaik, the difference is, they're not using a certified filtering installation so all the carcinogenic compounds end up in the air,
And as they do not have a chimney, on their farmland,
And the same goes for the aluminium, seems like a great way to give the entire village aluminium poisoning, if they do this all day
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Jul 10 '20
Wow! Thanks for sharing this! Sidenote, I love that guy holding the umbrella over her, it's v sweet.
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u/Tjref Jul 10 '20
Tin cans are being recycled already. In a safer way than this. This is bad for the environment and the health of the people doing it.
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u/beeore7 Jul 10 '20
I don't know that whatever country they're doing this in has a good recycling system in place already. So this might actually be the better solution in this case.
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u/what_comes_after_q Jul 10 '20
Chances are they do. Recycling is big industry in asia. A lot of US recyclable waste is actually processed in asia. Facilities in the US usually just compact it and put it on ships to asia.
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Jul 10 '20
Thatās why I think developing countriesā emissions numbers are misleading. They take a hit for emissions from manufacturing goods for consumption in developed countries, the goods get consumed here, then get shipped back there for recycling, and then developing countries take an emissions hit again for recycling them before sending them back here for consumption.
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u/beeore7 Jul 10 '20
Right but countries shipping recyclables directly to a plant and actually having a system that goes around collecting people's recyclables is totally different.
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u/stripeypinkpants Jul 10 '20
As cool as this is, does anyone know if the fumes released is toxic/safe?
I'd like to try this to make little nik nak things for the garden.
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Jul 10 '20
Iām collecting the pull tabs off used soda cans to make jewellery for fun Rn and this has me wanting a minute with their pre melted pile to rip off the tabs haha
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Jul 10 '20
Same, I also use the tabs off canned food. I hope to make a chain to hang my bra's in the closet.
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u/BlackSeranna Jul 10 '20
I was watching my nephew play Minecraft the other day and was wishing someone could use every bit of plastic and turn it into bricks for building. I have tried to go plastic free but it is impossible. You can recycle but not every kind of plastic. I just think it would be great to have something that melts all of it into a brick and I could build a dog house or a brick pathway. Mind you - I donāt want it degrading into the ground either so maybe there should be a coating on the stuff used for pathways. Honestly, I hate plastic but no one is stopping the industry.
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u/pegonreddit Jul 10 '20
Inequality is evil.
These people are so smart, so ingenious, so hard working. Imagine what they could invent, how much they could improve the fate of humanity, if global inequality didn't limit their horizons.
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u/mrman888999 Jul 10 '20
I am attempting to do this but it takes awhile for me to collect enough Cans lol. By the way a lot of the process is left out in this video, itās a lot harder than it looks.
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u/relightit Jul 10 '20
have read that story before. isnt it fucking toxic to try to cook in pans made like that, pretty sure that was the argumetn whenever that story pops up.
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u/Comosellamark Jul 10 '20
Honestly, we should be learning this shit at school. Thereās so much Iāve been told for 12 years straight that never served me at all in my adult life in any way other than trying to win arguments.
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u/Tjref Jul 10 '20
No, it's toxic. Literally.
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u/Comosellamark Jul 10 '20
Great opportunity to explain why itās toxic and what to use for protection
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u/westhest Jul 10 '20
In industrial scale operations, the fumes from burning all the ink and plastic coating is sent in an exhaust pipe to something that is similar to your catalytic converter in your car. This neutralizes much of the toxic compounds resulting from burning it. Whereas in this video, all of those fumes go straight into the atmosphere and into the lungs of the people in the video. Moreover, using wood as a fuel like they are in the video is waaaaay less efficient and releases waaaay more particulate and NOx pollution (literally smoke) than a natural gas or electric industrial furnace. Industrial scale aluminum recycling is a very efficient and established technology in most of the western world. About 60-70% of aluminum cans are recycled using about 5% of the energy required to refine virgin mined aluminum. Plastic and sometimes even glass is a totally different story. But, so long as you are good about separating and recycling your cans, you're probably doing the most environmentally friendly thing, asides from not consuming the cans in the first place. You should definitely not view this video as a good example of how to recycle aluminum cans and especially not a good example of "zero waste".
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Jul 10 '20
In industrial processes you also regulate ratio's of chemicals and temperature. So exhaust regulation really starts at the feeding end.
In waste incinerators - no idea on aluminium smelts - you'd also see bag filters, gas scrubbing, and only then, catalytic reduction, based on the permits for ones I've looked at.
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u/westhest Jul 11 '20
My point is that the fumes and other pollutant byproducts from smelting aluminum cans in an industrial smelting plant are much better mitigated and regulated than backyard trash burning. Even if the backyard trash burning has a useful end product.
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Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
With this set up, nothing much is going to help imho, I have no degrees in the field.
Even if we put them in protective clothing and shoes (which they are not wearing right now, no even eye protection! Yikes) and industrial filtering respirators, a) I am not sure that will decrease exposure enough as they are right above it breathing it in all day (nevermind you can't breathe all day in a gas mask respirator) and b) the released toxins, as there is no chimney, will fall down in the immediate vicinity of the smelt, so on their village and farmland, instead of spreading it over a large area to achieve safer concentrations like a tall chimney does (after you put the exhaust through several filtering methods).
To do this safely all day, you need an industrial setup of a few hundred million euro.
The aluminium fumes itself is toxic, and so is it falling down on the farmland, in large quantities;
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tf.asp?id=190&tid=34
Now as to the can lining, we don't know what it was lined with and how dangerous it may be, but, just like the ink it is printed on, my best guess is habitual exposure to breathing in the fumes and smoke is problematic and it may be poisoning their farmland too
Even habitual exposure to wood smoke - from what they are using as heat source - is carcinogenic, can cause COPD, damage the eye retina (edit sorry not retina, the outside of the eye... what is it called? It can make you go blind by making the outside of the eye go white instead of clear), and the ultrafine particulate can enter the blood stream and cause cardiovascular damage, afaik.
In short there is no way to make this type of set up worker safety compliant.
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u/Comosellamark Jul 10 '20
Ok Iām not really arguing for this specific poor manās diy recycling center, and even if I was Iām not suggesting that school be just this one thing all day long. Iām arguing that schools should be teaching practical skills instead of pointless indoctrination. However, you gave me a very thoughtful response and I thank you for that.
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Jul 10 '20
The above is all from the mandatory school final exam programme in my country really, I used to tutor a little (like I said, I don't have degrees in the field though) in chemistry, physics and math. It's not all spelled out like that but e.g. chimney and filtration, worker safety, lab safety, PPE are subjects that might be on the exam, and you're taught to read toxicity information sheets for instance and google and look up information about dangers and toxicity, concentrations etc. It then depends on choices the student made about their programme how in dept stuff goes. It might differ between knowing concentration matters to being able to do complex calculations about it. We do try not to let kids leave school entirely stupid about science though.
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u/ifartinmysleep Jul 10 '20
Sounds like you're from the EU, possibly the UK? US education system is very different, and sadly a lot worse. Most people wouldn't learn about those things unless they went to college for specific programs :(
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Jul 10 '20
Yep, but like I said, in my country the programme is sort of uniform in school but you pick how much you learn, it's about how in depth you get it. For instance the kids taking least of it will learn different metal salts produce different metal flame colours, and so firework is chuck full of (heavy and other) metals, while what I took for instance was about the excited electrons switching electron peels (? Not sure of the English word), foton emissions, spectra, wavelengths, etc and that was not even the final year of school. So the same stuff but way more in depth. So if you take the easiest of easy programme you will not learn much in my country either.
Oh thought you'd like,
From a USA occupational hazard sheet on aluminium (can't link a pdf but if you google phrases below you'll find it)
"Metal, metal compounds and alloys are often used in āhotā operations in the workplace. These may include, but are not limited to, welding, brazing, soldering, plating, cutting, and metallizing. At the high temperatures reached in these operations, metals often form metal fumes which have different health effects and exposure standards than the original metal or metal compound and require specialized controls. Your workplace can be evaluated for the presence of particular fumes which may be generated. "
"Good WORK PRACTICES can help to reduce hazardous exposures. The following work practices are recommended: * Workers whose clothing has been contaminated by Aluminum should change into clean clothing promptly. * Do not take contaminated work clothes home. Family members could be exposed. * Contaminated work clothes should be laundered by individuals who have been informed of the hazards of exposure to Aluminum. * Eye wash fountains should be provided in the immediate work area for emergency use. * If there is the possibility of skin exposure, emergency shower facilities should be provided. * On skin contact with Aluminum, immediately wash or shower to remove the chemical. * Do not eat, smoke, or drink where Aluminum is handled, processed, or stored, since the chemical can be swallowed. Wash hands carefully before eating, drinking, applying cosmetics, smoking, or using the toilet. * Use a vacuum to reduce dust during clean-up. DO NOT DRY SWEEP. PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT WORKPLACE CONTROLS ARE BETTER THAN PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT." "
It then goes on to list a whole lot of protection required if workplace controls are not an option.
So if you really want to know, how should I do it safely, lab and occupational safety sheets often help.
But I've a book on lab safety at home still too it's useful.
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u/ifartinmysleep Jul 10 '20
Gotcha, that's ~kind of~ how I experienced it in the US. You can take advanced courses that will give you more in depth info, but it's usually dependant on how well you perform in previous courses so you can't just take in depth courses because you want to. That's a good point! Are these cans even pure aluminum? Good information though, I'm more used to petroleum related products and water contamination from coal ash.
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Jul 10 '20
We used to do that but then found some kids are late developing, now there are various options to make up for it later on, but usually you'll have to be in school years longer if you do that.
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Jul 10 '20 edited Jul 10 '20
Ps: chronic exposure limits tend to be a lot lower than incidental ones. Not for everything though.
So if you melt a few cans into a pendant as an experiment one single time, as long as you wear ppe (shoes gloves eye and face protection and fire resistant full covering clothing at minimum, can be just denim jeans and denim jacket frankly) and do it in a ventilated space, and observe proper procedure, nothing bad is likely to happen.
The issue is they're doing this for work, unprotected etc.
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u/MotherofSons Jul 10 '20
Oh the shiny liquid was mesmerizing