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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26583 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 4, 2023

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This is somewhat tangential to the culture war, but WD-40 will soon be banned in Canada, despite what the headline of the linked article says.

At issue is a 2021 piece of legislation that comes into force on January 1, 2024. It limits the amount of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in many products, setting the limit for "multi-purpose lubricants that are not solid or semi-solid" to 25% (Listed in Schedule 1, Item 26(i)). Needless to say, this is much lower than the 65% VOC concentration listed on WD-40's MSDS pages (website link) for the classic product.

WD-40 Company responded to talk of the ban by evoking the spectre of Fake News, and didn't mention how they would comply with the regulations. I've sent them a message asking if the MSDS info will be valid into 2024 (because I don't trust journalists, particularly when they can't find the "VOC" entry in a table and don't understand that "low vapor pressure" means less volatile.), and I strongly suspect that it will be reformulated by replacing at least 40.1% of WD-40's composition with substantially different chemicals. EDIT: They've answered, and it will be reformulated.

This ties into the same issues as @some's top-level comment on food names: I don't think that breaded tofu is "Chicken" (or even "Chikn"), and I don't think that a >40% new lubricant is "WD-40".

See also: PYREX vs. pyrex

I don't think that a >40% new lubricant is "WD-40".

So is that the reason it's called that? I thought it was just some brand name and didn't know (or care) how it was derived. I think most people will feel the same way and if there is a new formulation, they'll continue to buy it.

Thanks for the link about PYREX and now I have learned about kitchen glassware. I checked, and my measuring jug is indeed PYREX not pyrex, so it'll be safe to use 😀 Interesting to learn about manufacturers cheaping out on ingredients once the brand name has been long established, but I suppose it's not surprising nowadays.

So is that the reason it's called that?

Nope. The WD stands for Water Displacement. When they developed it they tried out a bunch of different formulas, and they numbered each, eg WD-25, WD-37, etc. The 40th one turned out to be the best one, so they went with that.

It was developed for and initially used in the aerospace industry, so they just used the same generic "WD-40" name from their lab book instead of coming up with a catchy marketing name. It was only after employees kept nicking it to take home that they decided to sell it as a consumer product.

OP was just arguing that a large change in the composition of the product makes it substantially a different product, not that the WD-40 name was linked to a specific percentage of a specific component.

Thanks for the correction! Clearly I am woefully ignorant of the high-paced world of lubricants!

I was taking it by "I don't think that a >40% new lubricant is "WD-40" that it contained 40% of whatever the compounds are, but I should have paid more attention to the start where he says "the 65% VOC concentration listed on WD-40".

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