EPA to Regulate Nanoproducts Sold As Germ-Killing

[donsu]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201979.html

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to regulate a large class of consumer items made with microscopic "nanoparticles" of silver, part of a new but increasingly widespread technology that may pose unanticipated environmental risks, a government official said yesterday.

The decision -- which will affect the marketing of high-tech odor-destroying shoe liners, food-storage containers, air fresheners, washing machines and a wide range of other products that contain tiny bacteria-killing particles of silver -- marks a significant reversal in federal policy. It also creates an unexpected regulatory hurdle for the burgeoning field of nanotechnology, which involves the creation of materials just a few ten-thousandths the diameter of a human hair.

Until now, new products made with tiny germ-fighting particles of silver did not have to pass muster with regulators. That has concerned environmentalists and others who think that the growing amount of nanosilver washed down drains may be killing beneficial bacteria and aquatic organisms and may also pose risks to human health.
-snip-
long article
-----------------------


first I've ever heard of silver being a germ killer?

I can see nano slivers of silver messing up things, but killing germs

(neo cons seem to own the silver market)

[acmavm]

1. The miracles of science. Hope this works out better than

Frankenfood or the overuse of antibiotics (so now old diseases have come back and are unable to be treated, let alone cured).

[flyingfysh]

2. silver compounds have been known as germ killers for a very long time