It is a commonly held myth that stone age people did not affect the environment. They just did it a bit more slowly than we do ;-)
And hey, wiping out those mammoths was a, ehm, mammoth task (ok, ok, sorry about the pun!).

With regard to lead poisoning: After looking into the effects this new legislation would have on me (my company, that is) I became curious. After all, in my career I must have soldered away a few kilos of the stuff. So I decided to have my blood tested for lead and it turned out it was well below (almost two orders of magnitude) the acceptable limit, which is already very low.
If that is the effect on someone who has come into contact with solder almost every day for some 17 years, I really don't see what the fuss is all about.

This is not to say that I in any way encourage the willful pollution of our environment. I just think that a different way of reducing the amount of lead that 'escapes' would be more efficient. The enforced recycling Kai suggested, would be a much better solution in my view.
This should also include, among other things, the mandatory recycling of such things as IC tubes, anti-static bags and other such packaging materials. Whenever I have a production assignment, I'm often left with tons of that stuff and no one wants to take it back, in spite of the fact that most of it can be re-used straight away!

Oh, dang, this is all getting waay too political for the friday evening :-(


Have a great weekend, all.

Rob.