Consumer Action

Wlien ownership rights are less well defined, or not easily defended, the incentives for resource owners to efficiently use resources in a safe, non—polluting way, are decreased or removed. Individuals are less likely to take expensive, time-consuming action to protect a resource that they do not own, and by which they are not directly affected financially. For instance, most landowners would be quick to take action to prevent garbage generated by a local business from piling up in their own backyard. However, they would be less likely to take actions to prevent the same business from polluting a nearby lake or river. The reason is that any one individual has less direct, or at least less obvious, interest in the lake or river, than they do in their own property—and usually less ability to affect the outcome. 

Neil Gendel, Project Director, Lead Poisoning Prevention Project of Consumer Action, personal interview. May 1996. 

Lead Poisoning Prevention Project of Consumer Action... 

When documenting information about your action plan, it is important to document all interim protective measures and to include the anticipated date of completion. Otherwise, you run the risk of the action plan not being completed. This can happen when a part has to be ordered and time is needed for procurement, or when interim, less than adequate measures become substitutes for preferred but possibly more costly or time-consuming actions. On the other hand, this may not pose a problem if the hazard can be corrected in a short period of time, because someone probably will remember to see that the final completion occurs [2]. 

Among defaulting debtors themselves, it is a demand that is often read with some suspicion and/or confusion, as the following posts on the Consumer Action Group online debt advice forum show ... 

Sleep Deprivation Attacks. In this case, the target of the intruder is to maximize the power consumption of a victim, so that its lifetime is minimized. In particular, a power-consuming action is required every time a node is called to perform the test. Therefore, the compromised node could force continuously a victim node z to perform the test, thus implementing a sleep deprivation attack against it. This attack is prevented in two ways. The first is that the test is executed by a node z on the basis of the advertisement of a node j only if the reputation of j is greater than a suitable threshold. But, after the first test failures, the reputation of j will go under the threshold. The second way is that, as described in Section 4, each node keeps the timestamp of the last performed test on a node. The test can be repeated only if the new request arrives at a time not too close to that of the last request. 

The information needed by the design function, related to consumer choice and consumer action, as shown In Table 9.3 below. 

Consumer action Product use Information on how to reduce negative impacts during product use... 

D4 Suggest other consumer actions for minimal environmental impact than just recycling. 

Bronze disease necessitates immediate action to halt the process and remove the cause. For a long time, stabilization was sought by removal of the cuprous chloride by immersing the object in a solution of sodium sesquicarbonate. This process was, however, extremely time-consuming, frequentiy unsuccesshil, and often the cause of unpleasant discolorations of the patina. Objects affected by bronze disease are mostiy treated by immersion in, or surface appHcation of, 1 H-henzotriazole [95-14-7] C H N, a corrosion inhibitor for copper. A localized treatment is the excavation of cuprous chloride from the affected area until bare metal is obtained, followed by appHcation of moist, freshly precipitated silver oxide which serves to stabilize the chloride by formation of silver chloride. Subsequent storage in very dry conditions is generally recommended to prevent recurrence. 

Sources of human exposure to formaldehyde are engine exhaust, tobacco smoke, natural gas, fossil fuels, waste incineration, and oil refineries (129). It is found as a natural component in fmits, vegetables, meats, and fish and is a normal body metaboHte (130,131). FaciUties that manufacture or consume formaldehyde must control workers exposure in accordance with the following workplace exposure limits in ppm action level, 0.5 TWA, 0.75 STEL, 2 (132). In other environments such as residences, offices, and schools, levels may reach 0.1 ppm HCHO due to use of particle board and urea—formaldehyde foam insulation in constmction. 

The nutrient sparing effect of antibiotics may result from reduction or elimination of bacteria competing for consumed and available nutrients. It is also recognized that certain bacteria synthesize vitamins (qv), amino acids (qv), or proteins that may be utilized by the host animal. Support of this mode of action is found in the observed nutritional interactions with subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in animal feeds. Protein concentration and digestibiHty, and amino acid composition of consumed proteins may all influence the magnitude of response to feeding antibiotics. Positive effects appear to be largest... 

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