What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested

https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/how-much-toxic-heavy-metal-is-in-that-bright-red-fire-retardant-we-had-it-tested-to-find-out

by littlexsparkee • 1 year ago

193 118 1 year ago

laist.com

DuckConference• 1 year ago

All the heavy metals were below 1ppm, are any of the levels concerning?

orbital-decay• 1 year ago

In case there's some natural accumulation process, the concentration can reach any levels, so absolute quantity might (or might not) matter as well.

ted_dunning2• 1 year ago

Many of the levels are well above the levels required for drinking water.

That isn't much to go on, however.

fuzzfactor3• 1 year ago

Also, real ppm for this kind of thing is supposed to be by weight, so that would ideally be pounds per million-pounds.

IOW if they dumped a million pounds all over the place, and there was 1 ppm of trace lead content, then there was one full pound of unwanted lead scattered across the same acreage as the 900,000+ pounds of active ingredient.

However, ppm for environmental laboratories conventionally means milligrams per liter since that's a close equivalent to weight ppm, but realistically only for water samples. So for test material having a density different than water, some correction is needed which can often be neglected, but the real number is usually within the same order of magnitude.

jeffybefffy519• 1 year ago

I found it a bit concerning that this doesnt talk about safe dosages of any of the heavy metals.

memkit• 1 year ago

Fire retardant itself is much more harmful than heavy metals in this context.

It essentially causes neurodegenerative diseases, especially if you inhale it.

This applies to unintuitive routes of exposure, like taking a hot shower on an Air Force base that used flame retardant in fire drills decades prior and breathing in the water suspended in air.

cyberax6• 1 year ago

Fire retardant itself is much more harmful than heavy metals in this context.

I haven't found any studies about that, can you link them? It doesn't look like ammonium phosphate is dangerous.

Skunkleton• 1 year ago

https://nyulangone.org/news/flame-retardants-pesticides-over...

I don’t think it is shown that the flame retardants used by cal fire are the same as those in the article from nyu.

droopyEyelids• 1 year ago

It's a doomscroller-brained comment, confusing the PFAS fire retardant foams used on military bases with this ammonium phosphate made from mined Phosphorite rock.

KennyBlanken2• 1 year ago

They are talking about PFAS, which was (is?) in aqueous foam firefighting chemicals that were (are?) in widespread use.

At air force bases, airports (both the trucks and hangar suppression systems), firefighter training facilities. Municipal fire departments have metering devices on their trucks and can mix in the foam additive if it's warranted. Foam is incredibly effective on a lot of fires.

It gets into the groundwater from stuff like accidental hangar fire suppression system triggering, training exercises (at an airport near me, they have a dedicated steel structure that vaguely resembles a jetliner which they use for training, and yes, they use foam every time.) There are a lot of videos on youtube of the systems going off, intentionally (certification after installation - the system has to fill the hangar to X feet of foam within Y time), or accidentally being triggered because someone didn't respond to the prealarm fast enough to get to the control panel and stop it before the system started discharging.

At AF bases, FF training facilities, and airports it gets into the groundwater and it's game over - everyone who gets water from that water table has to install an expensive filtration system. And that's assuming it doesn't get into a nearby river or stream. The stuff gets used on a lot of vehicle fires on highways, those are often near riviers, streams, lakes, reservoirs....

I hadn't heard that PFAS or related chemicals were in the colored flame retardant used in forest fire fighting, though.

mike_d2• 1 year ago

It essentially causes neurodegenerative diseases, especially if you inhale it.

Good thing they do mandatory evacuations before using it and don't let people back in until clean up has happened.

AnthonyMouse4• 1 year ago

How are you supposed to clean up fire retardant dropped from a plane over a large area?

phantomathkg• 1 year ago

Source Please?

Rotundo• 1 year ago

It's ammonia phosphates with trace amounts of heavy metals.

fuzzfactor3• 1 year ago

I wonder who can figure out what the red coloring is ;)

Or if it will be accomplished one way or another?

scq• 1 year ago

The red colour is iron oxide (i.e. rust).

Source: https://www.perimeter-solutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/...

revx• 1 year ago

Great investigative reporting!

throwaway519• 1 year ago

It would have been a first for an *ist.

cyberax6• 1 year ago

So the article contains the data for the detected concentration. And it's basically a nothingburger.

For example, the samples contained 37 to 80 micrograms per liter of cadmium. The safety limit for _drinking_ _water_ is 5 micrograms. So diluting the retardant with 10 times the water makes it safe enough to drink.

Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7 micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure itself was unreliable.

Similar story for chromium, 100 micrograms is the safe level, and 200-300 micrograms were in the tested samples.

In fact, only arsenic is concerning, with roughly 10-60 times the allowed concentration for the drinking water.

KennyBlanken2• 1 year ago

First off, water standards were weak in the first place (because of lobbying from the chemical industry) and have been weakened several times since, so they've become a joke. If you're over the federal limits, you're in pretty bad territory.

It's also not a "nothingburger." How much area do you think one liter covers in ground area? Now go look at the giant cargo planes dropping the stuff thousands of pounds at a time?

All that crap washes down into waterways or leeches into the soil, then into the water table.

Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7 micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure itself was unreliable.

...that's not what that indicates, no. It could also be that lead is very inconsistently spread through the chemical.

Chromium doesn't have a safe level, just like there's no such thing as a safe level of radiation.

Before you start hammering away that the chances to you or me are extremely low: so are house fires, murder, etc. They still happen, and they happen to somebody. A low concentration of chromium consumed by a large population will definitely cause health impacts.

cyberax6• 1 year ago

It's also not a "nothingburger." How much area do you think one liter covers in ground area?

Quite a lot? This makes it even safer. The next rainfall, and all the retardant is diluted to safe levels.

All that crap washes down into waterways or leeches into the soil, then into the water table.

It's already there. Where do you think arsenic, chromium, lead, and other minerals come from?

Chromium doesn't have a safe level

You do realize that chromium is a component of stainless steel? Your cookware leeches plenty of it.

And it's not particularly dangerous, either, unless it's in its hexavalent form.

just like there's no such thing as a safe level of radiation.

There is. The normal background are about 20 micro-Roentgens per hour.

db48x• 1 year ago

just like there's no such thing as a safe level of radiation.

This is absolutely untrue. Living organisms _must_ deal with damaged DNA all the time or they wouldn’t be able to live for very long. There are many ways our environment can cause DNA damage, and radiation is definitely one of them. At low levels of radiation our own self–repair mechanisms easily fix the damage and no harm is actually done. This is especially good since we live in a constant bath of radiation all the time. We cannot escape it so it’s a good thing we don’t need to.

What isn’t good is that because of politics and fear most government regulations do not recognize this. Flawed safety regulations like this cost us a huge amount of money every year, both directly in the form of higher costs and indirectly in the form of lost opportunities.

aaronmdjones• 1 year ago

just like there's no such thing as a safe level of radiation

You're being pounded with 1-4 mSv per year of ionising radiation right now. Everyone has been, all the time, for millenia.

The safe limit for people working in the nuclear industry is 12 times higher than this.

nkurz• 1 year ago

Do you think they really mean "per liter" of the actual sample or is this possibly the amount in an already diluted solution that they made from the sample? It seems like an odd unit of measurement otherwise.

What would have been helpful in the article was a comparison to the levels produced by the fire itself. Fires in residential areas produce all sorts of nasty stuff. While we should make the retardant as safe as we can, if it prevents something even worse from being released it still could be a win.

Brian_K_White• 1 year ago

Not to mention, if the chemical producer doesn't want to be unfairly charged with toxic pollution that came from other sources, they could supply the damned info and proof of it's veracity, and/or samples.

This ball is entirely in their court and they deserve no benefit of the doubt on something like this.

There is clearly something there. It is 100% rational, from this starting point with the info that is available, to proceed on an assumption that the exact numbers are incorrect, and that we still would not like the correct numbers, even after weighing against not using any fire retardant, or using some other less effective or more expensive alternative.

cyberax6• 1 year ago

Do you think they really mean "per liter" of the actual sample or is this possibly the amount in an already diluted solution that they made from the sample? It seems like an odd unit of measurement otherwise.

The article doesn't specify. But it doesn't particularly matter either way.

Basically, don't drink the fire retardant, and you'll be fine. Even habitual exposure is not a big deal at these levels.

jandrewrogers2• 1 year ago

In fact, only arsenic is concerning, with roughly 10-60 times the allowed concentration for the drinking water.

Even this is unconcerning. The water standard for arsenic is unscientifically low for unrelated political reasons. There is no evidence that it is unsafe at much higher levels, as is common in many locales.

Arsenic is an essential micronutrient in animal biology, similar to selenium. We require some amount of arsenic in our diet and water is a common source. (More surprisingly, there is evidence that lead is an essential micronutrient in trace quantities but its biological function is not currently known.)

zkms• 1 year ago

(More surprisingly, there is evidence that lead is an essential micronutrient in trace quantities but its biological function is not currently known.)

Do you have some links about this? I found some papers re arsenic but I can't find anything re lead.

AnthonyMouse4• 1 year ago

Lead content in the samples was wildly different, from 7 micrograms to 800, indicating that the sampling procedure itself was unreliable.

That isn't the only possible explanation for the variance. That much variance could have been in the product itself, e.g. if the suppressant was supplied by different companies or by the same company that has sourced raw materials from different mines for different batches.

Teever• 1 year ago

Late last year, LAist requested samples of MVP-Fx from Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions, which manufactures the product, for the purpose of running an independent analysis for heavy metals. All declined.
“It’s not in our interest to share product with public or private agencies,” Jurasek said at the time. “You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It happens. It’s not something we do.”

How is this legal? Like how can the government spray random chemicals all over the land and there's no way for the public to compel them or the people supplying them to declare what's in them?

cube00• 1 year ago

“You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It happens. It’s not something we do.”

Scary to think what other discoveries were missed if those other investigations had been given the samples they asked for.

I also enjoy how they all pile on to say the results can't be trusted.

Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service and Perimeter Solutions all dismissed the results of the testing — saying that the samples couldn’t be relied on because they were gathered in the field.

Ferret7446• 1 year ago

It isn't the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide samples for analysis (unless the law compels them). Take it up with your government.

Like how can the government spray random chemicals all over the land and there's no way for the public to compel them

There is, by voting.

mistrial9• 1 year ago

no regulations are written by specialists and staff that implement the intent of the law passed by legislature or by executive order. Voting only pressures certain parts of that. The US and States have had large scandals regarding heavy industrial wastes over time.

agency• 1 year ago

It isn't the responsibility of the manufacturer to provide samples for analysis

In a sane world it would be

p3rls• 1 year ago

Rumor is they couldn't figure out where to put the "warning this product is known to cause cancer in the state of california" sticker on the planes

thatcat• 1 year ago

Prop 65 is written on the propeller

someothherguyy• 1 year ago

The federal government is at least somewhat aware of these issues

https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/documents/fl...

Historically, its not unusual for California's government and industry to dump chemicals all over the state.

jostmey• 1 year ago

I wonder if some of the high levels of lead found in the samples are from the airplane fuel, Which is sadly still leaded in the us

tastyfreeze• 1 year ago

It wouldn't be. Only avgas is leaded. Avgas is only used in piston engines. Turboprops and jet engines use jet A. Jet A is kerosene.

ungreased0675• 1 year ago

Why would there be any interaction or correlation between aviation fuel and fire retardant?

glitchc• 1 year ago

Fire retardant is typically delivered via air. If the aircraft is running on avgas, the retardant may mix with the exhaust on release.

cpgxiii• 1 year ago

Lead is only in avgas used by piston engines. Approximately zero firefighting aircraft use piston engines at this point - turbine power and reliability are so good that most firefighting aircraft that started with piston engines have been retrofitted (e.g. Calfire's Turbo Trackers).

sparker72678• 1 year ago

We should know what’s in the retardant, yes.

The alternative to retardant at the moment is uncontrolled wildfires.

urig• 1 year ago

That's an "all or nothing" fallacy, easily countered.

One alternative is water. Plus alternative products might be less efficient but less contaminating. Finally, even with Phos-Check, success is far from guaranteed.

Bottom line: the lack of transparency must be remedied and officials need to be aware and factor in heavy metal contamination into their decisions.

daedrdev• 1 year ago

Fires burining neibhorhoods already produce massive ammounts of toxic and heavy metals. It literally is just adding a little more to the already extremly present pollution

n2d4• 1 year ago

Water is not a fire retardant. Water can extinguish fire, but you can't apply water on a forest to prevent a fire from spreading there in the first place.

Your last paragraph seems to agree with parent? We should know what's inside, but it might still be the best solution.

iamacyborg• 1 year ago

Given the temperatures some wildfires are burning at, I suspect water isn’t available in suitable quantities to act as a retardant for fires that require these kinds of measures.

csours• 1 year ago

This feels like one of those things where context changes over time and takes a product outside of it's original use case.

Fire retardant is an emergency measure, one that would rightly be expected to see exceptionally low usage overall. But over time, more people and property have gotten closer to the forest; forest fires affect more people for many reasons.

So fire retardant use is not so rare.

The Therac-20 was a fine piece of electro-mechanical-nuclear technology, but the Therac-25 moved the control scheme out of its original context, and took away some of the physical interlocks. The Therac-25 is not remembered fondly.

Context changes over time, and assumptions need to be re-examined.

thih9• 1 year ago

It reminds me of handling null values or other kinds of exceptional situations in coding.

We can assume they happen for some reason but unless we actually ensure that, the branch for handling the intended exception can silently start handling other use cases too.

IndrekR• 1 year ago

That is why Therac-25 was mentioned, I guess. Software kills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

jongjong3• 1 year ago

I feel like the economy has become one giant scheme to enable chemical companies to peddle their toxic products onto the oblivious public.

They put preservatives in everything... Even some brands of ice cream has preservatives...they taste awful. I don't know how anyone can eat that... Am I the only one who can taste that horrible bitter aftertaste? These products are inedible.

The irony is that they load up processed foods with preservatives and ship them half way across the world... While people in your local community can't find work... They could have been making better food in a food truck and selling it locally, no need for preservatives. Why is this not possible in most places?

I've lived in a country which had a strong foodtruck culture and the food there was both excellent and cheap. The model is proven yet it doesn't work in a lot of places for some reason. Too much regulation? Regulating the wrong things? They should be regulating chemicals!

mike_d2• 1 year ago

The most common preservatives in food are salt, sorbic acid (occurs naturally in fruit), and sodium nitrate (mined directly out of the ground).

If you constantly experience a bitter taste when eating foods you should speak to your doctor. It can be a sign of an infection or liver issues.

jongjong3• 1 year ago

Sodium nitrate has a bitter aftertaste to me. A bit like baking soda. I can usually taste it then I check the labels and sure enough I see 'preservative (252)'.

guerrilla• 1 year ago

I was always told it was boron (or borate?). People always called them boron bombers.

Yes, that was a thing. https://www.borax.com/news-events/november-2022/boron-flame-...

Tabular-Iceberg• 1 year ago

“It’s not in our interest to share product with public or private agencies,” Jurasek said at the time. “You are not the first person to ask for us to give them fire retardant. It happens. It’s not something we do.”

I don’t get why they are acting like they have something to hide. Phosphate is mined from rock, rock contains all sorts of other elements including heavy metals. That’s simply how minerals work. It’s not by itself an indication that anyone has done anything wrong.

4gotunameagain2• 1 year ago

This is one of the downsides of an excessively litigious society.

Being afraid of potential risks, even if there are none, reduces transparency.

potato37328422• 1 year ago

This industry learned a lesson from the AFFF debacle. And that lesson wasn't "share everything".

harimau777• 1 year ago

Unfortunately, excessive litigation is one of the downsides of an under regulated society. If our only protection from corporations is lawsuits then we shouldn't be surprised that people bring a lot of lawsuits.

mmooss5• 1 year ago

excessively litigious

I haven't heard evidence that litigation is excessive, except by very wealthy corporations and people.

I think most or many people lack access to litigation - they can't afford to use it or to protect themselves from it.

jyounker• 1 year ago

Companies don't need the threat of litigation to hide information about products. That's why departments like the FDA and USDA were created to begin with. For example, people were selling crude oil as medicine, and people were selling tape worm eggs a weight-loss pills.

potato37328422• 1 year ago

Or they don't want to make it obvious that they're taking something cheap and marking it up a million percent and nobody is asking questions. This happens a lot in "our only customers are government or compelled to buy by government" industries of which fire is one.

Hizonner• 1 year ago

The usual reflexive secrecy. Nobody gives out any information about what's in any product if they can avoid it. This has really bad economic and environmental effects.

I don't know that this particular retardant is a big deal, but the rule really ought to be that the maker of every product must disclose to the public (not just actual buyers) (a) what they put into it, (b) where they got it, (c) how they assured that it was what they thought it was, (e) how they processed it, (e) exactly what analyses or characterizations they've ever done on the product or anything that went into it, and (f) the complete results of those.

Trade secrets not only shouldn't get any legal protection, but in many cases they should be illegal.

Scoundreller2• 1 year ago

I once bought a cinnamon spread but the ingredients didn’t explicitly say cinnamon, it just included “natural flavour”.

I asked the company to confirm if cinnamon was one of the “natural flavouring” and they refused to confirm!

alephnil• 1 year ago

Some of the heavy metals are likely from the fire retardant, and some are likely from the fire. Look at zinc vs lead for example. There is little lead in the unused sample vs the environmental samples, thus most of the lead is likely not from the fire retardant. I would guess the most likely source is lead from roofs of burning houses.

Zinc on the other hand is present in all samples in about the same amount, including the unused one. That means that the zinc is likely from the fire retardant rather than the environment. Other metals are present in slightly higher amounts in the environmental samples, and often only in some of the samples. In that case both the fire retardant and the fires/environment are likely to contribute.

To me it seems like copper, lead and manganese are mostly from the fires, while zinc and chromium seems to be from the fire retardant. Then there is the sample from the Franklin fire, that seems to be higher in everything.

HelloMcFly• 1 year ago

Some of the heavy metals are likely from the fire retardant

I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote, but they did also analyze unused, "fresh out of the package" retardant.

rvba• 1 year ago

Where is it manufactured? In USA or somewhere else?

If it is manufactued in other country then they might not care about heavy metals in the product.

hnbad• 1 year ago

The US doesn't have a great track record of caring about the health of its citizens, no need to bring in xenophobia.

Last I checked, parts of the US still have flammable drinking water.

Many neighborhoods still have lead pipes because the companies required to replace them were allowed to offer paying off the affected tenants instead.

The FDA is understaffed and barely tests a fraction of the things you'd expect it to, let alone more than once.

The US has detonated multiple nukes on US soil.

The CIA literally drugged random people with LSD.

Volunteer emergency helpers during 9/11 received literally no meaningful long-term medical support - not to mention US soldiers exposed to the US burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US even relies on chlorination for poultry - a practice banned in the EU and UK among other places because it is only necessary if you want to compensate for poor hygiene standards.

And do I need to remind you of the handling of the train derailment in Ohio that ended up poisoning the air in 16 states?

ChrisMarshallNY• 1 year ago

Lane feels firefighters were left in the dark

That kind of thing happens a lot (see “9/11 Syndrome”).

Kind of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

One of the things about fire, is that it alters chemistry. Perfectly safe materials, can turn into highly toxic gas, when heated. In many cases, this cannot be anticipated, or realistically prevented. There are also firefighting foams and whatnot. I think some of the foams contain fairly significant quantities of questionable chemicals. They are pretty much required, for Li-ion battery fires.

Firemen kinda take the brunt of that. I know a number of retired firefighters, and they all have health issues.

mmooss5• 1 year ago

Remember that some of the firefighters are prisoners (as in criminals), a vulnerable population that has less choice and less access to health care or other remedies.

perihelions2• 1 year ago

- "Phos-Chek MVP-Fx is primarily made of ammonium phosphates, which are derived from phosphate. That rock, when mined, can contain trace amounts of heavy metals."

The thing they're catastrophizing about is rock phosphate—ordinary fertilizer that's mixed into the soil of every food farm in the world.

I'm not sure if the journalists who wrote this article are aware of this. "It's COVERING my garden plants!" reads quite definitely when you recognize it's f'ing Miracle-Gro.

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-c...

- "Phosphorus is an essential element for plant and animal nutrition. Most phosphorus is consumed as a principal component of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizers used on food crops throughout the world. Phosphate rock minerals are the only significant global resources of phosphorus."

https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/risk/... ("Heavy Metals in Fertilizers")

- "Risk assessments conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency and others have concluded that the hazardous constituents in inorganic fertilizers generally do not pose risks to public health or the environment."

libertine3• 1 year ago

"Risk assessments conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency and others have concluded that the hazardous constituents in inorganic fertilizers generally do not pose risks to public health or the environment."

What I believe you're missing is where this might be coming from. We live in an Institutional crisis, where for years propaganda was spread and amplified by internal and external actors (like Russia) to undermine institutions, with lies and conspiracy theories.

Bold claims were made that organizations and the government were captured by private interests, completely disregarding that actual qualified people are working to make sure things are safe, like products we consume.

Just for context, RFK Junior is the US Secretary of Health and Human Services.

So, to circle back to your quote, the Risk assessment made by the US Environmental Protection Agency could be easily dismissed by the following unfounded and unsupported claim, "yeah the US Environmental Protection Agency is serving the big companies; they should be dismantled."

Like it would be the easiest thing for Russia to start a trend to sway people to demand a ban on phosphate. They did similar things with regard to Ukraine, to the point where the US Administration is amplifying russian talking points.

To be clear, I'm not saying this article is a propaganda piece; what I'm saying is that this sort of opinion from someone who doesn't seem to fully understand the subject is a prime example of something that could be amplified for propaganda and contribute to institutional demise.

graemep• 1 year ago

You seem to be implying that all claims of regulatory capture, or even simple incompetence or bias, are all the result of Russian propaganda seems like a pretty bold claim to me.

I am sure there are people who want to sow distrust for their own ends, but there are also good reasons for distrust.

what I'm saying is that this sort of opinion from someone who doesn't seem to fully understand the subject is a prime example of something that could be amplified for propaganda and contribute to institutional demise.

Part of the solution is transparency and full information.

“It’s not in our interest to share product with public or private agencies,”

Is not an attitude that inspires confidence.

hello_computer2• 1 year ago

The devil is in the details. Even though all minerals contain impurities, NPK fertilizer is processed to reduce them to acceptable levels for agriculture. If they did not do this, places dosed with large quantities of it (year after year after…) would become superfund sites. It is the same reason coal is so nasty: the CO2 is nothing compared to the ash—which is loaded with heavy metals. If the ash retaining ponds around a coal plant ever broke, the land would be uninhabitable for centuries, so the the ppms and ppbs are crucial information here.

chabska• 1 year ago

Even though all minerals contain impurities, NPK fertilizer is processed to reduce them to acceptable levels for agriculture

Source? What process exactly?

somat• 1 year ago

I was trying to figure out what is in class A firefighting foam last week.

Nobody really wants to say, it is all trade secrets, evading a direct response, using vague sweeping terms, like it contains surfactant and foaming agents.

However based on the published MSDS. my guess, soap, it is mainly soap.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/rm/fire/wfcs/products/msds/foam/silv...

Note that I do think it is soap finely engineered for it's fire suppression characteristics. I also think you would get 80% there with a bottle of dish soap.

BenjiWiebe2• 1 year ago

Ya some of us rural volunteer firefighters will use dish soap instead of foam concentrate. I personally haven't but some of the others in the department have.

Scoundreller2• 1 year ago

Or diy zip lock bags of baking soda to drop into chimney fires

pfdietz• 1 year ago

Some phosphate rock deposits have very high levels of cadmium. Phosphate fertilizers derived from high Cd rocks can have up to 100 ppm cadmium.

compass_copium• 1 year ago

This is much cleaner--35 /ppb/.

Really irresponsible and bad journalism.

perihelions2• 1 year ago

- "up to 100 ppm cadmium"

This is remarkable, and leads to me question what numbers this article is reporting. Their cadmium figures are parts-per-billion—ranging 30–45 μg/L. That seems impossibly low for something that's mostly phosphate; i.e., the EU's inorganic fertilizer standard[0] is 60 mg/kg, and they call 20 mg/kg "low-cadmium".

This would appear to be several order of magnitudes lower cadmium than "low-cadmium" fertilizer. That doesn't sound very plausible, does it? Given their common component.

OP's using μg/L. What is a "liter" in the denominator? That'd be an odd unit for measuring a dry powder. Is it liters of the solvent they dissolved the sample in, before running the mass spec? Was it intended to be reported as a a quantitative measurement, at all? (Was there maybe a communication error between the lab technician and the journalist?)

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20181119IP... (Fertilisers/cadmium: Parliament and Council negotiators reach provisional deal")

hoseja• 1 year ago

This is like antivaxx. Yes you will find heavy metals pretty much everywhere if you test sensitively enough.

What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested

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