Greenstuff

Well, there are material safety data sheets, so we know what it consists of.

...and that's why I think most people use it much too carelessly. Anyone with a halfway decent idea of how chemistry works instantly sees that this stuff is not good for your health. You shouldn't touch it with your fingers or cheap latex gloves.

Greenstuff consists of around 80% bisphenol-a or its side products. BPA is an estrogene mimicker.
Now, it doesn't kill you, and it is not yet fully clear if it is causing cancer (although it is likely judging by its chemical formula). Also: BPA is everywhere. In small concentrations though. In fact in some countries it is outlawed for plastic products to contain more than around 5% of BPA, especially for children's products. Again, BPA acts like a hormone so children's bodies are affected more. It causes hermaphrodite births on mice (sounds silly but mice are not that different from us, so that gives some clues) and some other nasty stuff.
Worker unions have a maximum exposition to BPA defined in their rules. It is pretty low actually. Which is why they enforce the use of proper gloves.

An adult human gets rid of it at a certain (decent) rate, so if you are not otherwise getting a lot of BPA into your body nothing bad happens. Problem with that: you dont know how much BPA is in your body. So I tend to say I want to avoid the stuff I know to contain a large amount of BPA, so I don't have to care about the rest.

And without becoming too tin hat heavy: the companies producing it are aware it is dangerous, but there are almost no alternatives (which is also the reason BPA is not outlawed yet) so they try and convince people it is not harmful.
Some of them try to avoid it though. I looked at material sheets of some different Greenstuff products and the amount (as well as the exact subtype of the substance) varies. There is Greenstuff around with more and with less BPA.

Alternatives are scarce though. For most stuff you can use air drying mineral stuff like clay, DAS putty, or Fimo air basic just as well. Very small stuff is hard to do with those though. They are also more rigid when they are cured, and thus break a bit more easily.

If you work with green stuff, do one or more of the following:
- Don't eat it. Don't eat on that table while you use it.
- Don't touch it with your bare hands. Use Nitril gloves. Don't use Latex gloves
- use those gloves once and throw them away.
- Put some newspaper or something on your table. Throw it away when you're done using Green stuff.
- put the Green stuff away well. Don't let your kids or pets touch it. Just to be sure.
- when it is cured it has lost half of its dangerous stuff already. When it is primed or even painted you can touch it without danger. I probably still wouldn't lick on it though.

That's all. And yes, there are people around who touch it daily and have felt no negative impact in their life. Good for them. But that's like saying smoking isn't bad for you because someone smoked and still got 90 years old.

So yeah, it is harmful for your health but no reason to freak out or go on some crusade. Just minimize exposition a bit and you will be fine.

 

No, the problem with that kind of hazard is that you have to prove it is hazardous.
That's where that would fail because proving something to be harmful and proving that it is the cause of what happened is pretty hard.
Even in very clear situations (like someone who smokes, which is proven to be very unhealthy) it is - scientifically speaking - hard to prove that smoking was the cause for the health problem, such as cancer.

So let's say a woman has hormone problems, and even if you could prove - already hard to do - it was related to BPA, and you knew she was working with Greenstuff a lot, it could still be another BPA source that caused the issues.

That's also why the companies are still pretty safe, because they know it is hard to prove. So they say "It is not proven to be harmful" and technically they are right.
And the (publicly available) MSDS says that you shouldn't touch it so legally they are fine.

EDIT: I attached the MSDS of Milliput white. Just for info in case someone is interested in it.

 

Yeah, pretty much for all epoxy putties. The amount of BPA varies, but IIRC it is always quite high (over 60%).

 

I'll attach the kneadite brown MSDS shortly. My phone browser is doing strange stuff right now...

Not spectacularly different. As you'll see half of it is BPA plus a bit of BPF.

Generally speaking BPA is what makes the stuff soft. So a very soft one like Milliput has a lot and brown stuff has less. In fact one of the components of Milliput white seems to be 100% BPA if I read that correctly.

 

Here it is.
Fun fact: the safety advice looks a bit more scary here, even though brown stuff contains less of the hazardous material.

 

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!


Say that in the voice of Sid from Ice age....

 

Please, don't do it. He's so annoying.

And no, of course it is pretty unlikely that you will die, and no you should not panic and/or go on some crusade.

I just want to tell y'all (because it was asked by the OP) that you should probably do what the manufacturer recommends as safety measures and not treat that stuff like it was Play-Doh because it isn't.

This is not like "Learn which food will kill you today: Banana edition". This is more like telling people that inhaling fumes at the gas station is something that isn't healthy.

 

Back in the 80ie's before green stuff and Milliput was the goto material I used to lick it to stop it being sticky!!!

 

...Yeah that's not exactly what you should do... of course even then - depending on how often you did it and what time passed in between and how old you were - you have probably not done any significant damage.

...But water with a bit of dish soap added works better anyway. ;-)

 

Cheeky....

 

Please actually read the MSDS. Nobody said anything would kill you. Perhaps mess up your body a bit, make you infertile, make your kids hermaphrodites or something. Perhaps contribute to your cancer risk, but it is not deadly itself and on its own.

EDIT to clarify: Our knowledge about what BPA can do are still limited, research is ongoing and the stuff mentioned above are things that can happen and we don't know how likely they are yet.

The manufacturers don't mention the more severe stuff on the MSDS. But they prefer to be on the safe side as well and say you should use gloves etc.

But the exposition you get when touching pure BPA is MUCH higher than drinking water from a pipe that was repaired with it. Especially since the putty in your hands is still soft, while the other one is cured. HUGE difference.

Again, I am not here to spread panic, you can use it just fine, and even if you aren't careful you might get away with it just fine. Just like with smoking.
And if you don't care you don't care. That's OK.

I am merely stating the facts in case someone wants to know, because my impression was that people don't know.
My intention is not to disturb anyone, I am not on a crusade against Greenstuff, I use it myself (doing the above things which don't cost much).