“CAUTION!
- Dust Irritating.
- Keep container closed.
- Do not breathe dust.
- Do not get in eyes.
- Do not take internally.
- For Laboratory Use Only.
- Not For Drug Use.
- Keep From Children.”
C. H. Breedlove found this warning on a bottle of a lab chemical. Any guesses as to the identity of this noxious substance?
SAND
When chemical companies, preparing materials for chemists, start putting such ridiculous labels on innocuous products, is it at all surprising when Joan May finds this response to a letter from a day care center in a Friday Harbor, Wash. newspaper?
“You say you have a problem finding sand that’s free of silica to fill the sandbox? The Southcenter Toys-R-Us stocks a sand that is free of additives and is approved by state license inspectors.”
How interesting to find a source of sand that is free of silica. Sand is silica. No doubt the way to play with silica-free sand is to just think about it.
It is too bad that more thinking didn’t go into this letter. Is it just possible that the author had heard about silicosis, the lung disease, and made the leap to the sandbox without any further research?
Silicosis is produced by the inhalation of dusts. Silica is a common culprit, but the disease is also produced by sugar cane waste and raw cotton dust. It occurs in industries in which the air is polluted by dust (pottery, metal grinding, sand blasting).
Sand particles at the playground are mostly too big to float in the air as a dust. Also, even the most aggressive sandbox play would put too few dust particles in the air to be of any concern.
If the author were so worried about our lungs, why not also warn us to not wear cotton clothes?
References
1. Chemical and Engineering News (Oct 2, 1989) p 136.
2. Van Nostrand’s Science Encyclopedia, 5th ed., D. M. Considine, Ed., (Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.: New York) 1976.