On Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:41:10 +0000, Optimist
wrote:

On Mon, 14 Nov 2016 14:57:50 +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 08:15:31 on
Mon, 14 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

banning barometers containing mercury but
not lightbulbs,

An easy target at first sight but a progressing matter. Incandescent
lamps involve the greatest production of mercury at the stage of
electricity production. CFLs have some mercury in them but not in the
form of "raw" mercury. CFLs will themselves be overtaken where
suitable by the use of LED lighting and other developments.

Mercury released into environment from disposal of dead CFLs all the time whereas mercury barometers
go on for donkeys' years.

You aren't comparing like with like. The mercury in lightbulbs is a
danger to the environment, that in a barometer is a danger to people in
the same room when it breaks, and for years afterwards as the mercury
lodged in cracks evaporates.

I've never of a case of one breaking. Have you?

There was more potential hazard from medical thermometers and
sphygmomanometers being broken when dropped but sales of those to the
general public have been banned since 2009 and non-domestic usual
practice is now to use other devices. The trouble with a barometer is
the quantity of mercury available (presuming it is not just in an
attached thermometer) and the likely persistence if there is a
breakage which is unlikely to be cleaned up with as much efficiency as
in non-domestic premises; much of the current risk assessment works on
the basis of such barometers being fixed on the wall rather than
mobile.

limits on power usage of vacuum cleaners and kettles.
Consumers will be better off without many of them.

You think e.g. the USA presented as a glorious example by Brexiteers
always has slacker requirements ?

What are you on about? Who is talking about USA? UK consumers should have choice. Why should we
only be able to buy feeble vacuum cleaners and slow kettles?

The reduce our C02 footprint.

Quite the reverse, bringing water to the boil quickly wastes less heat than slowly warming it up
water. Low-powered domestic vacuum cleaners don't do the job properly so people will have to get
hold of industrial ones.