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by Tom Pullizzi <pullizzi@verizon.net>
June 26, 1998
We are still using Cadmium here in the United States, and some of
our military specifications still call for cadmium plated from a
cyanide or fluoborate solution. Rather than send this plating off to
a country which does not protect its citizens or its environment as
well as we might, we should plate all of it right here.
Do I hate the EPA for the regulations which keep Cd from getting
into the environment or make it very difficult to plate cadmium
without the proper capture equipment? Not at all! I think it is
wonderful that engineers have found ways to keep Cadmium in confined
spaces and out of the atmosphere and water.
Despite what some people are saying about the regulations, I think
that we need every one on the books, and we should be inventing a few
more. I don't want to think that an electroplating shop is spewing
heavy metals into the air and water when I work in that shop. We have
the technology! And if we don't, let's make some!
The air and water are getting cleaner in the USA, and the reason
why this is true is because of the regulations. It is wrongheaded to
think that we have over done it, and that we can now safely scale
back on regulation. We (the polluters) could never have done it
without a central (federal) agency which leveled the playing field
for all platers in this country.
I don't think that the Common Sense Initiative makes sense either.
Einstein said that common sense is the layer of prejudices built up
before the age of eighteen. (I'm not smart enough to know what he
meant, but that's for another editorial).
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