Compressed Air Dusters Should Be Blown Away
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 05. 1.07
The Sightline Institute has some revealing information on those handy computer air dusters. You might have used one of these things at some point in your life to clean your computer innards; more nefarious uses include making cool 'ice rods' in a sink of water by upending it, and making a compressed air gun. Oh, these things are versatile.
Turns out the contents are also horribly bad for the environment. Some of them use 100 percent tetrafluoroethane, a known greenhouse gas that is roughly 3,300 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Nice. So, according to Eric De Place, a 10-ounce can of cleaner will have the same climate-changing effect over the next 20 years as burning at least 100 gallons of gasoline. That's one can. The other common gas in these things is difluoroethane, which has about 10% of the impact as other variety. Eric states that that is still about 330 times the impact of CO2.
Further irony is that gas dusters are often billed are safe for the environment, citing that they are 100% ozone safe, with no CFCs or HCFCs. These statements are in fact true, but skirt the issue of climate change.
It's obvious that these dusters are yet another technology, like portable yogurt or plastic bags, that we can do without. The hunt for the perfect duster has begun, and Giotto's Rocket (pictured above) has received excellent reviews. If you are a big shop or need to blow a lot of air around on a regular basis, you probably should be using an air compressor.
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I had no idea those things were so loaded. I always thought they were just regular air, but compressed and sealed in a can. Why aren't they?
Peter, the cans are liquefied refrigerants which undergo phase change to gas when you spray., which means that the fluid is heavily compressed. If the cans were compressed air, they wouldn't last very long.
I think this one is a little more complicated. From what I'm seeing, diflouroethane is the more common one.. at least that's what Dust-Off uses, which is the most popular brand as far as I know. So, using the posts's numbers, a can of Dust Off would release the equivalent CO2 of about 10 gallons of gas. Tthese things usually last pretty long for me, like a few months, so compared to all your other emissions, it's not that significant. If you're blowing through one of these every week, then you have a problem.
Bottom line, they seem to work really well for certain tasks like getting dust and grime out of hard to reach places where other methods don't work. So use a regular duster when you can, and if you need to use compressed air, get the diflouroethane kind.
http://www.earsnorthamerica.com/theearsstory.html
A new Air compressor technological jump recycles air for higher efficiency, less noise, less pollutants.
Which means a smaller compressor for around the house, or in every factory, is on the way.
What about compressed CO2? Those little brass cartages work OK, you just need a way to make them bigger and add the nozzle.
Here's an idea that has worked for me for years:
I bought a simple, relatively small pump sprayer for garden use from the local big-box home improvement store. The sprayer is meant to be used for spraying liquids (fertilizers or pest controls) onto plants or other objects.
I instead use it dry.
Just pump the sprayer until continued pumping becomes difficult, then "spray" the dry air onto the areas that need cleaning.
The sprayer needs to be refilled fairly frequently, but at least it is reuseable.
A word of caution: If you decide to use such a sprayer, either use it exclusively in this dry fashion, or be sure that it is completely dry (hoses, nozzles and all) before using it on delicate electronics.
Why is any one 'buying' air, why can you not compress your own air with a bike pump into the very same can?
Unfortunately the issue of canned air isn't as simple as using an air compressor. When using this on electronics, you need to make sure that there are no particle contaminates or liquid contaminates. If any condensation has gotten into the air compressor you could have shocking results on your electronics. Using liquids that turn to gas at standard temperature and pressure are great because it eliminates these contaminates.
These cans are also portable, have a long shelf life and have gauges telling you how much is left (shake it!), and (of course) are relatively cheap to acquire. They do a great job at what they are supposed to do, but the unfortunate environmental side effects are not apparent to the user of the product, so until a BETTER product that happens to be environmentally-friendly comes along, or some piece of legislation is put into place banning these chemicals, their use will continue indefinitely.
I would love to try an environmentally-friendly alternative if there is one out there.
I quite happily use the rocket blower pictured above for cleaning my dSLR camera. When it comes to camera cleaning the use of cans of compressed air is NOT recommended, apparently the air can be too cold and cause damage and there is always the potential for some liquid to come with the air which would damage all those delicate bits and pieces inside.
Other than these cans being somewhat wasteful, I'd never really thought about them having greater environmental consequences. However, there are many harmful and wasteful products which are far from necessary, and I doubt they can all be legislated away ... more likely some sort of taxation which goes some way to account for the negative externalities of such products, and much tighter control over the use of damaging substances.
Speaking of wasteful, unnecessary products and compressed air, I just saw this portable air-con in a can ... its things like that which really make one despair!
Hang on - why are you showing the rocket duster if that's not the problem?
And also I heard of true stories of children inhales those air dusters to their death. While I find them useful and I always show tell my daughter how bad is that thing. If you just tell your children don't, but don't tell why, they will always try that. So you gotta be precise and true about such things.
These work well and do not have running costs or pollution:
http://www.amazon.com/Adorama-Blower-Brush-Small/dp/B00009R7W6
Mine is 25 years old and still going strong (you take the brush off when blowing most of the time). As long as the rubber does not perish and my fingers still work, it will do me fine. Can't vouch for the linked brand, but the photo is the part I wanted you to see.
Will the Giotto's Rocket work on PC's