Yesterday I bought some correction fluid. I need to put small white dots on some objects, and figured this was cheaper than buying a container of paint and a tiny brush.
I’m talking about the office supply we used to call “Liquid Paper” or “Wite-Out”, a little bottle with a brush built into the cap we all used in the 1980s and 1990s, before it was replaced by those little white tape dispensers. This one is an off-brand from the dollar store.
Here are the safety warnings from the packaging:
CONTENT MAY CATCH FIRE.
FUMES MAY CATCH FIRE.
CONTENTS HARMFUL.
MAY IRRITATE EYES. MAY IRRITATE SKIN.
DANGEROUS FUMES FORM WHEN MIXED WITH OTHER PRODUCTS.
Do not mix with other chemicals.
Do not smoke.
Do not swallow.
May cause blindness if swallowed.
Do not breathe fumes.
Do not get in eyes, on skin or clothing.
Keep out of reach of children. Keep away from flames, such as a pilot light, and any object that sparks, such as an electric motor. Use only in a well-ventilated area. Wear rubber gloves, safety glasses.
… and then it goes on with first aid treatment.
I googled some of the phrases, and found that the Staples store brand has the exact same wording.
I know it’s from the regulators and the corporate lawyers, and of course it would be dangerous to swallow this or dab it in your eye. But still, rubber gloves and safety glasses?
I can’t quite imagine being that dangerous and the warnings are clearly excessive. I don’t see how in any reasonable court system the warnings could hold up vs. expectations of product use.
If they’re legit warnings, the product should be off the market as too dangerous.
So far as I can tell, dihydrogen monoxide has to have the Prop. 65 label, or as my husband calls it, “the label that cried wolf”. EVERYTHING is a deadly threat to humans, to hear the media tell it, especially here in California.
Heh. I remember buying some silver polish in the late 1980s - probably just after Prop 65 was passed and the routines weren’t quite established. The polish said something like, “known to cause cancer in the State of California.” To which I responded, “well then, I won’t visit California while using this product.”
I have a (different brand) of that in gold colored paint, and I’ve had it for maybe 20 or 30 years, and it still works to label small devices, like calculators or phone chargers. I endorse that suggestion.
I was building something at work last year, and I needed some thermal grease for mounting some solid state relays. So I purchased this stuff from Mouser. After I used it, I put it on a shelf and forgot about it.
Last week a safety inspector came through our lab. She saw the grease and noticed it didn’t have an inventory sticker. She asked about it, and said we needed the SDS for it. I contacted Mouser. They said they didn’t have a SDS. I didn’t have time to mess with the problem, so I asked her, “Can you just dispose of it?” She said, “Not without a SDS.”
Somehow this “serious issue” was elevated within our organization, and management started asking me about it. I contacted Littelfuse. They didn’t have the SDS either. I was finally able to get a SDS from the original manufacturer (small company in Delaware, Ohio) after making a number of phone calls.
I doubt it will instantly kill you, but there could be trichloroethane, various hydrocarbons, etc., in it. Why do you think those are not legit warnings to not sniff it, pour it in your eyes, or set it on fire?
You know, they do make acrylic markers, white gel pens, white drawing ink…
I can only assume that, absent the official datasheet, you don’t know it’s not plutonium grease.
The warnings may have to do with presumed legal protection against suits in connection with dumb teens huffing correction fluid. It’s been a thing since at least the mid-'80s.
I get it that she has a job to do. But IMO her response to the situation was disproportionate to the risk at hand. She was in a near state of panic for hours. She said the label on the container said it was “toxic.” So I looked at the label. It said it was “toxic to aquatic life.”
Management was discussing it in the hallway. It became a Big Deal™. Emails were flying back and forth. I had to drop everything I was doing and make it my priority right now.
Somewhere in the voluminous rules of the Straight Dope is a requirement that when anyone mentions Wite-Out or Liquid Paper, another Doper must remind the rest of us that the inventor of Liquid Paper was the mother of Michael Nesmith of the Monkees.
Continuing to live is known to the State of California to increase your risk of cancer. There should be a pop-up message on your phone each morning warning you.
I don’t know why you’re blaming the media. It’s the law, the badly written and nonsensical law, that makes that stipulation. Is there a survey anywhere about the media’s attitude (if there is one) about this law?
