Products that prick your conscience 13

[3dKiwi]

Just a thought, but do any other members face a dilemma regarding the items they produce?
As a plastics toolmaker/drafter I have always avoided the bottle/packaging industry, as the problems relating to disposal are all too obvious.
This may seem rather trivial, but how about people involved in the manufacture of land mines, for example?

DC

 

[jmw]

Two different holes:

Biros do indeed have a hole in the removable cap designed to prevent choking.

The small hole in the side of the pen or in the plug does allow air in and the ink to flow.

And on the same topic, in the UK trees are being cut down because motorists keep driving into them and killing themselves (I'd keep the tress; see

http://www.darwinawards.com)

and chesnut trees because the conkers that fall from them can injure children waiting underneath.

Some of these are good safety ideas. Some are lunacy.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[profengmen]

I don't think a hole will prevent actual choking. I bet it breaks the vacuum created when a child sucks on them, preventing them from being inhaled or sucked into the mouth, that would make sense.

I always assumed it was a molding issue, but the inhaling prevention does sound viable.

 

[MElam]

Maybe the UK could take lessons from Jamaica.

I was vacationing there in a small town a couple of years ago. There was a local artist who is now mentally impaired because of getting conked on the head by a coconut while napping under a palm tree. Now they tell EVERYONE in town "don't sleep under palm trees", but they do not cut them down. (the artist no longer paints, now he only makes carvings from coconuts!)

Back to the original subject, every person has the ability to decide what DIRECT affect their work has on the world and if their conscience can deal with that. I'm very glad to see that 3dKiwi and others posting here actually have a conscience.

As a wise man once said: "You must BE the change you wish to see in the world"

 

[jmw]

Well I don't know.

Once they move out of the osmosis stage (where they ingest food through the skin and can only eat smearable foods that can be hand applied such as jelly, cream, yoghurt, treacle, paint etc.) Kids become pretty omniverous; they'll eat pretty well anything that doesn't eat them first (except,of course, green vegetables). This includes most plastics which toy manufacturers so thoughtfully use thesedays. I can tell you, when i was a lad and toys were made out of die cast alloys and covered in lead based paints, the diet wasn't nearly as attractive.

Just occasionaly they mistake whether they are supposed to eat or breath the object they have taken into their mouths and I think the idea is to include some sort of airway in the biro cap for just such occasions when interior swelling around the object can otherwise close up the air passage.

Of course, I like your explanation too even though kids can get anything into their mouths using both hands (and a foot if necessary; I'd hate to think what they'd put in there if they could unhinge their jaws like snakes) so i don't think breaking the vacuum does more than slow them for a moment.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[IRstuff]

That itty-bitty hole is way to small to break any serious sucking action from most kids.

Plus, most BIC pens have a cap on the top of the tube, so the hole doesn't help anything other than ink flow.

TTFN

 

[ChrisConley]

jmv,

I'm giving you a star, not because the topic, which was good, but instead because of the context of your posts I now understand the words 'biro' and 'conkers'.

I've read a number of books by English authors and been unable to figure out exactly what they were talking about for years.

Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett are the two authors I'm thinking of.

A little off topic, but it proves you learn something new everyday.

 

[jmw]

Biro: Ladislao Josef Biro, the Czech (or Hungarian) inventor of ink stained shirt pockets.

Not to be confused with the other Biro who invented some sort of meat processing machines.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

eng-tips, by professional engineers for professional engineers
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.