March for Science 2017

[Armitage72]

Curiously the article only gives warnings about the hazard of the co-reactant (chlorine gas), failing to mention that 30% H2O2 is capable of producing serious chemical burns in a matter of seconds! Splashes in the eye don't bear with thinking about!

That gives our Marketing people fits. I'm responsible for creating the Safety Data Sheets for our products, and the corresponding hazard information on the product labels. Hydrogen peroxide is classified as a Category 1 Eye Irritant under GHS, so anything with 3% peroxide or more has a Corrosive pictogram, "Danger", and "Causes serous eye damage".

 

[fuelair]

In this case, once you get above 35% concentration in the US, you have to start worrying about DHS regulations, since it can be used to manufacture IEDs. You have to have more than 400 pounds on hand (approx. 43 gallons) before a security screening of the facility is required, so it's not really something schools have to worry about, but it probably makes it harder to find suppliers willing to ship non-manufacturing use quantities. The company that I work for makes several peroxide-based cleaning products, and we deliberately stay at 31% for our raw materials to avoid going through a screening and having to implement the DHS' anti-theft security requirements.

But, school board policies (and some state ones) are what stop it in public schools. We had to return a lot of the pre-ordered chemicals ordered for our school's start-up (2002) as they were banned in our system but the order was made up by someone who had to have been using a supply list from the seventies-possibly early eighties.