Posted by Steve Dietz on September 17, 2004 11:56 AM
On a recent trip to San Jose, I checked into my hotel too late to go right back out the door after I was welcomed by this sign next to the elevator:
Warning: This Facility Contains Chemicals Known to the State of California to Cause Cancer and/or Birth Defects Or Other Reproductive Harm.
When I asked the desk clerk, she assured me that all hotels in California have to post this warning and gave me a brochure, which clarified matters a great deal.
California's Proposition 65 (Safe Drinnking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986) reqquires businesses with 10 or more employees to provide warnings prior to exposing individuals to chemicals known to the State to cause cancer, and/or birth defects or other reproductive harm.
These types of chemicals are found within this establishment. This brochure provides you with information on what chemicals are present and what your exposures to them might be.
The brochure identified such hazards as smoking, alchohol, fish that can contain elevated levels of mercury, brass keys, which "if in use" can contain a number of Proposition65-listed chemicals, hot tubs that use chlorine, and when "any time organic matter is burned, Proposition 65-listed chemicals are released into the air." Etc.
This type of warning is what I would call a difference that does not make a difference - except that I probably won't return to that hotel, of course, even if the same "problems" are present in every single hotel in California.
What I really need is something like Eric Paulos'sLimelight (via Jonah'scoin-operated)), which provides "the user with an awareness of the current condition of actual threats that should be of concern" [emphasis added]. Thank you Eric! Although you do have to wonder whether his shift from selling pathogens via a vending machine (Dispersion, 1999) to warning indicators of actual threats isn't a sign of the times, like this Crop Art work (sorry, I didn't get the artist's name) recently on display at the Minnesota State Fair.
On a recent trip to San Jose, I checked into my hotel too late to go right back out the door after I was welcomed by this sign next to the elevator:
The brochure identified such hazards as smoking, alchohol, fish that can contain elevated levels of mercury, brass keys, which "if in use" can contain a number of Proposition65-listed chemicals, hot tubs that use chlorine, and when "any time organic matter is burned, Proposition 65-listed chemicals are released into the air." Etc.