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0 pointsfoldr4y ago0 comments

Eating lead is the worst case scenario when it comes to lead poisoning. Yes, your body will manage not to absorb much of the lead. But you can't seriously be suggesting that lead is safe to eat!

I'm not sure if maybe you were misinterpreting 'end up in food' in the post you're replying to. The GP isn't talking about the lead getting into the soil and then indirectly into the food supply. They're talking about the scenario where some little balls of solder are literally inside the sandwich you're eating.

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CamperBob24y ago

I don't know anyone who would recommend eating while working with lead solder. At some point, common sense has to come into play.

Fortunately, common sense is enough. Metallic lead simply isn't that toxic in the grand scheme of things.

foldrOP4y ago

As has been repeatedly said, the problem is that small balls of solder can persist in your home environment, which makes it difficult to be sure that you’re not eventually eating them. For example, solder balls caught in your clothes or hair can fall off and land in food or drink that you’re preparing. It’s very difficult to quantify how likely this is to happen, but it’s not that outlandish of a possibility.

Now of course you could be really careful about changing your clothes and washing after you solder. Then again, you could also just use lead free solder, which works fine.

CamperBob24y ago

Or you could cite some reproducible statistics indicating that this actually happens in real life, in quantities that affect human health and development rather than mass-spectrometry plots.

Fact is, there was never any actual science behind the RoHS prohibition of lead solder. Not while lead-acid battery production was still permitted, certainly. The same people who thought it was a good idea to do this also thought it was a good idea to shut down all the nuclear plants in Germany because of something that happened at an unrelated facility in Japan. We're not allowed to argue with them because reasons.

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0 pointsfoldr4y ago0 comments

Eating lead is the worst case scenario when it comes to lead poisoning. Yes, your body will manage not to absorb much of the lead. But you can't seriously be suggesting that lead is safe to eat!

0 comments

CamperBob24y ago

I don't know anyone who would recommend eating while working with lead solder. At some point, common sense has to come into play.

Fortunately, common sense is enough. Metallic lead simply isn't that toxic in the grand scheme of things.

foldrOP4y ago

Now of course you could be really careful about changing your clothes and washing after you solder. Then again, you could also just use lead free solder, which works fine.

CamperBob24y ago

Or you could cite some reproducible statistics indicating that this actually happens in real life, in quantities that affect human health and development rather than mass-spectrometry plots.

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