Thread: Age restrictions on the purchase of ....eggs

There are a lot of environmental contaminants that have seen widespread use, in some cases for centuries, and that are known to cause medical or developmental issues. Just a few of them, that are now regarded as highly dangerous, just from memory.

Lead
Used in plumbing at least from Roman times (which is where the word comes from), paint and cosmetics from ancient Egypt onwards, munitions from the Roman era, batteries since the 19th century, all sorts of engineering, including solders, alloys etc, and in the form of organic compounds, as an octane enhancer in petrol. Causes a wide variety of medical issues, and now regarded as dangerous if ingested, either directly or via plant or animal products. Lead solder is not permitted in many situations, with this enforced mainly over the last thirty years. Not allowed in paint, petrol, or some other uses, but use is still widespread

Mercury
Used in instrumentation since ancient Greece, chemical and refining processes since the eighteenth century, dentistry from the 1850s to the 1980s. Known to be dangerous in vapour form since about 1800. Soluble organic compounds very dangerous known since the 1950s. Now regarded as unsuitable if it can be contacted or possibly ingested by the public, but still widely used in industry.

Asbestos
Used to make fireproof fabric from antiquity, it became a major industrial product in the nineteenth century and the expanded to very widespread use in construction in the 20th century. It was known to be medical problem from industrial exposure to dust from early in the twentieth century, and by the 1950s was known as a carcinogen, but rarely resulting in cancer. Several factors seem to have resulted in this becoming more common. These include that these cancers take a long time to develop, so the population living longer is an issue. Another factor seems to be the change in the 1960s in the actual mineral used - there are two forms of asbestos, blue and white. Blue is decidedly more hazardous, but also more common. It was rarely used until about 1960. The other factor worth mentioning is the introduction of power tools to cut fibro sheeting dry. These ensure the operator works in a cloud of asbestos dust, which is very hazardous. (And a similar exists issue with silica - silicosis has been known for several centuries, but has spread from a few special industries where it was a workplace hazard, to become a risk for anyone using an angle grinder or similar to cut or polish stone or concrete dry.) Asbestos in no longer permitted to be used in new equipment or work in Australia and some other countries, being replaced by often less suitable materials.

The list could go on and on. One problem is that as the ability to measure very small concentrations improves, there is a tendency to further reduce the environmental levels that cause alarm, in some cases resulting in major expenditure for very doubtful benefit.

Many moons ago we lived in a very old un-renovated house.
Our little dog went blind, took her to the Vet & he reckoned it was lead in the Lino that had made her blind.
We pulled the Lino up, painted the floor, the Vet gave the dog injections over several weeks & she came good, sight wise.
Never had the problem agin.
Jonesfam

When i was a kid,our parents wouldnt let us get a job at the local garage,the old man always said we would get lead poisoning.

Yet at home we sprayed Dieldrin around here there and everywhere,it worked very well,particularly on those bloody green ants.
And used Cresote regularly on the retaining walls,fence posts,etc.

A mate of mine started at QBuild as a carpenter in 1961.They were building a lot of schools in the day.
He says they could never see from one end of the work shed to the other for asbestos dust most days.

He is still going,but it got his first wife,she was only 30.Came from his work clothes.

When I was a kid in the 50's we would throw bits of fibro in the fire because it go off like a fire cracker & when playing hop scotch we would use pieces of fibro to throw into the squares , while waiting our turn we would suck on the fibro.

Before the mid 70's when I was working as a motor mechanic we used to use compressed air to blow out brake drums , we instructed to washing out the dust with water in mid 70's . After fitting new brake linings on the shoes we would radius grind the shoes to fit the drums & bevel the leading & trailing edges of the linings. All this done with out any PPE. I also remember while we were waiting for parts guys to pick parts for us we would pump petrol if a customer came in for petrol.

I am now in my 70's & so far no health problems from these practices.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

There are a lot of environmental contaminants that have seen widespread use, in some cases for centuries, and that are known to cause medical or developmental issues. Just a few of them, that are now regarded as highly dangerous, just from memory.

Lead
Used in plumbing at least from Roman times (which is where the word comes from), paint and cosmetics from ancient Egypt onwards, munitions from the Roman era, batteries since the 19th century, all sorts of engineering, including solders, alloys etc, and in the form of organic compounds, as an octane enhancer in petrol. Causes a wide variety of medical issues, and now regarded as dangerous if ingested, either directly or via plant or animal products. Lead solder is not permitted in many situations, with this enforced mainly over the last thirty years. Not allowed in paint, petrol, or some other uses, but use is still widespread

Mercury
Used in instrumentation since ancient Greece, chemical and refining processes since the eighteenth century, dentistry from the 1850s to the 1980s. Known to be dangerous in vapour form since about 1800. Soluble organic compounds very dangerous known since the 1950s. Now regarded as unsuitable if it can be contacted or possibly ingested by the public, but still widely used in industry.

Asbestos
Used to make fireproof fabric from antiquity, it became a major industrial product in the nineteenth century and the expanded to very widespread use in construction in the 20th century. It was known to be medical problem from industrial exposure to dust from early in the twentieth century, and by the 1950s was known as a carcinogen, but rarely resulting in cancer. Several factors seem to have resulted in this becoming more common. These include that these cancers take a long time to develop, so the population living longer is an issue. Another factor seems to be the change in the 1960s in the actual mineral used - there are two forms of asbestos, blue and white. Blue is decidedly more hazardous, but also more common. It was rarely used until about 1960. The other factor worth mentioning is the introduction of power tools to cut fibro sheeting dry. These ensure the operator works in a cloud of asbestos dust, which is very hazardous. (And a similar exists issue with silica - silicosis has been known for several centuries, but has spread from a few special industries where it was a workplace hazard, to become a risk for anyone using an angle grinder or similar to cut or polish stone or concrete dry.) Asbestos in no longer permitted to be used in new equipment or work in Australia and some other countries, being replaced by often less suitable materials.

The list could go on and on. One problem is that as the ability to measure very small concentrations improves, there is a tendency to further reduce the environmental levels that cause alarm, in some cases resulting in major expenditure for very doubtful benefit.

Life- it is always guaranteed to end in Death

isn't this thread about eggs?

of which we in Australia consume 17,000,000 each day?

that's 1,416,666 dozen at around $3/doz.....$4.25million/day is good business...and that's not value added.

wonder how much bacon we consume.

Originally Posted by ramblingboy42

isn't this thread about eggs?

of which we in Australia consume 17,000,000 each day?

that's 1,416,666 dozen at around $3/doz.....$4.25million/day is good business...and that's not value added.

wonder how much bacon we consume.

So is that 34,000,000 bulging chooks' eyes?

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The research in question correlates the highest levels of lead with older suburbs, which would have had generations of lead paint on everything - most of which ends up in the soil, which chooks spend their day pecking at, so it is hardly a surprising result.

My guess is that in most cases, while it is forty times more than "shop eggs" it is still not high enough to be a significant issue, unless you eat a lot of eggs.

The relevant bit of the research is this:


Two key findings arose from the study data: (i) in order to retain chicken blood Pb below 20 μg/dL, soil Pb needs to be < 166 mg/kg; (ii) to retain egg Pb < 100 μg/kg (i.e. a food safety benchmark value), soil Pb needs to be < 117mg/kg. These concentrations are significantly lower than the soil Pb guideline of 300 mg/kg for residential gardens. This research supports the conclusion that a large number of inner-city homes may not be suitable for keeping chickens and that further work regarding production and consumption of domestic food is warranted.


Lead poisoning of backyard chickens: Implications for urban gardening and food production - ScienceDirect

So, the permitted levels of lead in gardens are just less than double what's permitted for chooks. Which would mean that veggies would have more lead than the eggs, all things being equal.

I seriously doubt that there's a pile of lead in my backyard - it's not full of paint residue and we don't have lead pipes. There are some very contaminated sites in the old inner-city industrial suburbs - in particular where the petrol stations were - but our street was always residential and prior to that was market gardens. In any case our veggies are grown in raised beds that are filled with commercial soil, so they at least should be fine. And the chooks were in disgrace last weekend because they got into the newly planted beds, but at least now I can argue that it was better than them scratching in the soil.