Methylene Chloride Dangers

[Steve Senseney]

A headline just popped up about a tub stripper causing deaths.

This contains Methylene Chloride. It is a common ingredient in degreasers, and paint strippers.

Here is a list of products commonly containing this.

http://hpd.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/househol ... yx=75-09-2

I suspect I have products with this in my house. Probably what I use to clean paint brushes.

It has caused 13 deaths.

Please read!! Check the news for further info!!

[Halgeir Wold]

Methylene Chloride used to be a common industrial degreaser, as well as paint and glue stripper, along with TrichlorEthyelene. Both are known carcinogenes, and are more or less outlawed for domestic use in Europe.

Sudden deaths from this must be caused by heavy exposure, maybe in enclosed areas...
It develops carbondioxode in the body, which is transformed to carbonmonoxide in the blood , according to my local job safety register.
Never-the-less - one of those things one better does without.....

[Barry Daniels]

Carbon dioxide is not the hazard. Methylene chloride can form carbon monoxide which displaces oxygen in the blood and can cause death from asphyxiation.

[Celeste Hall]

Methylene chloride, now that brings back fond childhood memories. It was the "safe" alternative to chloroform in the HPLC columns Dad used at work. He brought the used stuff home to use as solvent on whatever. When my sister was 7, she got an oil plaint set, Dad showed her how to use the chloroform to clean her brushes, and if she ever felt funny, to go outside right away and not come back in till she felt better, then clean up. Around the same time frame, I was 5, he showed me how to make my first explosive, Lead Azide. The world was a much more naive in the mid 60's

[Clay Schaeffer]

It is one of the most effective strippers you can buy. When I buy stripper I look for it as an ingredient. For occasional home use (out doors) it is probably "safe" for most people to use. Still pretty nasty stuff!

[Don Hall]

This is the common ingredient in most old-fashioned paint strippers. Read and follow label directions and remember the parts about using gloves and good ventilation. I think the vapors are heavier than air, so use it on a bench, not on the floor.

[Louie Atienza]

Probably best used outside on a bench... scary though.

I had an old set of Popular Mechanics encyclopedias, and you should have read some of the projects: Make an electric warmer with asbestos board, create an ozone-making machine, turn your lathe into a tablesaw (with a picture of a guy pushing something through freehanded)... I could go on and on...

[Ken Edmonds]

No point looking for it as in ingredient in Europe. As already said it's been banned for domestic use.
The market leading paint stripper's new "improved" formula means it takes three times as long and doesn't work as well in my experience.

[Mario Proulx]

No point looking for it as in ingredient

Most of us here will hoard stuff for many years, if not decades, so yes, it's still good to go back and look at the ingredients.

I remember(barely...) playing with "the dry liquid" in school science class. Yup, mercury... Lead was at one time so common it's spooky. 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with lead poisoning! I suppose today they would have quarantined me....

It's always good to get a heads-up on a new nasty. Thanks!

[Alan Carruth]

We use to play with mercury too. I did a science fair project in High School on plastics, and made my own nitrocellulose. Imagine what folks would say about THAT today.

Alan Carruth / Luthier

[Halgeir Wold]

Strange how time changes the tune.....
My late father was plumber, and i remember sewer pipe joints used to be sealed with tar wool and cast lead..... the lead pot was happily bubbling away on the kerosene burner, releasing that rather special fume.....
I also vaguely remember those little white snow drifts in the barn windows in the late 50s, to keeep the flies away.... yep - it was DDT.....