16 June 2009

Bomb bags banned in the interim

| johnboy
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Simon Corbell has announced that he’s banning “Bomb bags”:

    “I have approved an interim Product Safety Order and issued a serious and clear warning to our community in response to an ACT resident who over the holiday weekend reported significant injuries to his eyes.” Mr Corbell said.

    “These injuries were a result of being exposed to the contents of a ‘bomb bag’ which exploded in the consumer’s hand, but with enough force to spray the liquid content of the product into his eyes.

    “The product, which is designed for amusement, creates an explosion by massaging the contents of the foil ‘bomb bag’ causing a chemical reaction between the ingredients inside, resulting in the bag exploding.

    “It appears that in this circumstance the product has not been misused.

    “The interim order will prevent or reduce the risk of injury to any person arising out of the possession, handling or use of this product while the Office of Regulatory Services makes further enquiries about the product and its distribution.

    “Businesses who stock these ‘Bomb Bags’ should immediately remove them from their shelves with care and contact the Office of Regulatory Services on 6207 3000 if they require any further information.

As I’d never heard of bomb bags a bit of quick googling produced the above video. I can’t say they look like they’ll be any great loss to the community.

If you’re after a giggle there’s also video of a kid setting one off in his shorts.

Everything2 explains that they’re basically just baking soda and food acid.

So on the one hand harmless unless held in hand and deployed near eyes. Versus of no real value to the community unless you like seeing kids try to blow off their balls.

Is this the end of squeeze bottles filled with lemon juice? No more vinegar for your chips?

It’s an interim ban while the Office of Regulatory Services takes a look at the case before a final decision is made in 28 days time.

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Maybe I should have had the sound on the laptop on…

Steady Eddie4:25 pm 16 Jun 09

Thoroughly Smashed said :

I remember bomb bags from my yoof. They were wholly unsatisfying, and I’m surprised they still exist.

Steady Eddie said :

Bomb bags? Don’t you mean bum bags?

Didn’t read the original post?

That was a joke, Joyce.

Anyone remember making match bombs when they were a kid?

If by kid you mean late twenties….

Thumper, do you mean bolt-bombs?

Bolt bomb to me spells shrapnel, something I was pretty cautious of even as a kid. Our match bombs needed nothing but a box of matches and some packing tape.

They were fantastic – but back in my day (1890s) kids had commonsense!

I had no idea you had so many years on the rest of us Mr Evil 🙂

Thoroughly Smashed2:59 pm 16 Jun 09

I remember bomb bags from my yoof. They were wholly unsatisfying, and I’m surprised they still exist.

Steady Eddie said :

Bomb bags? Don’t you mean bum bags?

Didn’t read the original post?

Anyone remember making match bombs when they were a kid?

Highly unstable and therefore dangerous, but wow, fun!

Thumper, do you mean bolt-bombs?

They were fantastic – but back in my day (1890s) kids had commonsense!

Steady Eddie2:39 pm 16 Jun 09

Bomb bags? Don’t you mean bum bags?

Deadmandrinking2:12 pm 16 Jun 09

Has anyone ever seen the movie “Mom and Dad Save the World”? The incident described reminds me a lot of something called a ‘light grenade’ from that movie.

People of Canberra…stuff can hurt you. That’s why brains are needed to survive this world.

I laughed and felt better about myself when I saw the kid put the bomb-bag down his pants…but then I realized it was something I would have done at his age.

Woody Mann-Caruso2:12 pm 16 Jun 09

I wonder if it’s the same as mine. We got ours from some trashy 80s paperback about hijackers – one bit went into great detail about how one lot made their own napalm (not that there’s much to it).

“Mum, can we have that box of Lux?”
“What for?”
“Umm…washing stuff?”

I’ve got an awesome recipe for homemade napalm.

Match bombs, making aerosol cans explode, mixing aluminium powder and iron oxide in a key ratio and lighting with a strip of magnesium, packed around a soda bulb…
There are a great many ways to destroy things as a bored child, all using legal ingredients.

Nothing that you’d want to light & put in your pocket, or hold up to your eyes, though.

I watched the clip of the boy. A Darwin Award apprentice.

Why would you do that and even think for a moment that it wasn’t going to hurt ?

Skidbladnir said :

Oh noes, weakly acidic compounds mingling with weakly alkaline compounds to produce non-ETS covered carbon pollution!
Ban all primary school science projects immediately!

From what I remmeber of high school chemistry:
6(NaHCO3) + 2(C6H8O7) –> 2(Na3C6H5O7) + 6(CO2) + 6(H2O)
6(sodium hydrogen carbonate)+ 2(hydrogen citrate) = 2(trisodium citrate) + 6(carbon dioxide) + 6(water)

ie: sodium bicarb + citric acid = water, excess gas, trisodium citrate, and a low concentration of weak carbonic acid thanks to interconversion of some of the carbon dioxide.
(Blow into a glass of tapwater through a straw, note that most of the Co2 bubbles up into the room and the water is now a bit acidic. I meant really low concentration)

Trisodium citrate is only an irritant by mechanical process in the eye (ie: it feels a bit gritty) according to its Materials Safety Datasheet.
If he got either sodium bicarb powder in his eye or citric acid in -powdered form- in his eye, it might be a bit of a threat, but shouldn’t these things be using liquid forms, and so just need a liberal flushing with water?

imagine what happens when a bit of lemon or orange juice gets in his eye. when i was at school, we preferred to play with gas taps and weather balloons. each to their own.

Oh noes, weakly acidic compounds mingling with weakly alkaline compounds to produce non-ETS covered carbon pollution!
Ban all primary school science projects immediately!

From what I remmeber of high school chemistry:
6(NaHCO3) + 2(C6H8O7) –> 2(Na3C6H5O7) + 6(CO2) + 6(H2O)
6(sodium hydrogen carbonate)+ 2(hydrogen citrate) = 2(trisodium citrate) + 6(carbon dioxide) + 6(water)

ie: sodium bicarb + citric acid = water, excess gas, trisodium citrate, and a low concentration of weak carbonic acid thanks to interconversion of some of the carbon dioxide.
(Blow into a glass of tapwater through a straw, note that most of the Co2 bubbles up into the room and the water is now a bit acidic. I meant really low concentration)

Trisodium citrate is only an irritant by mechanical process in the eye (ie: it feels a bit gritty) according to its Materials Safety Datasheet.
If he got either sodium bicarb powder in his eye or citric acid in -powdered form- in his eye, it might be a bit of a threat, but shouldn’t these things be using liquid forms, and so just need a liberal flushing with water?

Can’t we just ban stupid people instead?

+1

James-T-Kirk12:44 pm 16 Jun 09

Yep – Yet another example of a cretin causing the removal of something that should be basically harmless. What moron would hold something that says “Bomb” close to their eyes?

Kiddies – Just Google, and you will find *lots* of other things to amuse yourselves – Heck – if we get enough kids putting metho and rags into bottles, then we may even get all forms of flammable liquids banned! That will satisfy the bike riders.

Potassium Permanganate and Glycerine? – Damm there goes my foot bath for my Tinea!

Baking powder – bugga – there goes my ability to make Honeycomb! Oh wait – making honeycomb requires heating sugar to over 130C – Thats gota be dangerous..

Never forget the power of the truly stupid… there is a cup-a-soup ™ container thats ingredients list says

“The Presence of the words Wheat, Milk and Eggs in bold in the ingredients list indicates that this product contains Wheat, Milk and Eggs.”

Sure enough the list contained the words Wheat, Milk and Eggs. And they were in bold.

O.M.G !!!

A ban on menthos and diet coke should also be considered. As well as stable and unstable chlorine.

Holden Caulfield12:27 pm 16 Jun 09

Next stop fireworks! :p

That’s 41 seconds I won’t get back.

The video of the kid setting it off in his shorts is very funny, his face looked so unexpected.

Can’t we just ban stupid people instead?

Woody Mann-Caruso12:15 pm 16 Jun 09

Maybe when they ban these kids will have to go back to bottles filled with draino or dry ice to get a bang. I suspect most of the bangs I hear through the year are just kids setting off bottle bombs in underpasses.

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