In a striking change of direction the USEPA has decided to regulate an ever growing part of consumer culture....  pesticides built into our products.

As you may have noticed you can get just about anything these days in "antibacterial" form.  Windex, socks, deodorant, zebart tidycar antibacterial car wash, hell even my keen sandals have "no odor footbeds" impregnated with what Ray Anderson CEO of Interface calls " Microbial Inhibitors".  Dont be fooled fellow citizens for the fancy terms used in place of the regulatoraly defined word pesticide.  That word, with all this organic food fan fair can cause negitive vibrations.... rightly so, maufacturers are shying away.

Enter the world of nanotechnology.  Silver nanoparticles to be exact.   Up till now, the tiny germ fighting particles did not have to pass muster with regulators.   Of course now these compounds are found in odor-destroying shoe linders, food storage containers, air freshners, washing machines, and a wide range of other things. 

These freeking little tiny silver slivers are a billionth of a meter.  As you might imagine they can and do leave the product they are impregnated upon and enter the environ.   Under pressure from other groups, the EPA decided to reconsider. 

"We took a second look at the release of silver ions, and it was very cleart that this is a pesticide and not a device," said Jim Jones, dirctor of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Prgrams."

While you think this over and formulate your opinion... go and check out Samsung's new Silver Wash clothes washer which sanitizes clothing with silver nanoparticles.   Hmmm  where does the silver go after the rinse cycle?   Do you think the waste wate treatment plant treats for silver nanoparticles?  Do you think dillution is the solution for pollution?   Not in my back yard... and certainly not here in the brown city on a dead lake.  http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/lakeerie/eriedeadzone.html

Terra Prima!