ChimeWind

For people to still question the safety of being exposed to lead is appalling. It has been proven without any doubt that lead affects the brain, especially children who are still developing. It has been proven time and time again that the more lead in your body/blood the lower your IQ. What about the "freedom" of those children they were exposing to that lead? And yes, there is in fact an epidemic in this country for lead-based poisoning. The problem is that it doesn't instantly kill you like a bullet and make the news, it just continuously deprives our children of having the life they could have had.

jmquinn32 said: "I don't accept the notion that people need to be saved from themselves. Let consumers become educated to the saw-stopping benefits and the market will decide."

History has shown that this does not hold up. It wasn't until the government banned lead house paint was it removed from the market even though there had been decades of proof showing how damaging it is to the developing brain before the ban. I firmly believe it would still be sold today in house paint (and sometime still illegally is) if it weren't for the ban. Even when someone knows the "facts" you still have price and marketing that can easily overcome many people's reluctance to purchase an "unsafe" product. Ignorance is bliss.

Your blanket statement about cellulose not being green is just plain wrong. You are mixing up installation/regional issues with greenness for your comments on cellulose. It has to be one of the least resource-intensive insulation products to manufacture that outperforms fiberglass insulation. On top of that it is using up a "waste" product. In many areas of the US and Canada that get below freezing you would never be installing plumbing on an outside wall/ceiling for fear of freezing pipes (I do remember approx. 15 years ago when it was -20F all the way down to southern Iowa). Furthermore in the northern US and many parts of Canada fiberglass insulation is one of the worst insulations to use since 50% of its R value is lost when it is -20F whereas cellulose keeps its R value. Since you sound like you are building in an areas that does not experience freezing temperatures these issues are not applicable (especially if you are installing plumbing in outside walls/ceilings). So to make blanket statements such as you have done without your assumptions being stated is irresponsible.