An ad I heard on the radio yesterday

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11 April 2012 @ 09:46 pm

The major local franchise for BP, Ken-Jo Markets, is now bragging about having put Purell hand-sanitizer dispensers at every pump, because you never know who was touching the nozzle handle before you were.

Me personally, I have this faintly twitchy feeling about putting jellied alcohol near gasoline, but I'm assuming their lawyers reviewed it before they actually put any of them up.

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11 comments —

( 11 comments — Leave a comment )

blaisepascal on April 12th, 2012 01:59 am (UTC)

What's the perceived problem? It's not like the combination is hypergolic or anything.

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janetmiles on April 12th, 2012 02:09 am (UTC)

I don't know, specifically or chemically. I just had the impression that putting a flammable substance near flammable fumes might be less than optimal.

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redbird on April 12th, 2012 02:09 am (UTC)

I don't think chemistry is a required course for law school admission, though.

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carlyinrome on April 12th, 2012 02:10 am (UTC)

Fuck the lawyers! I want to know if SCIENCE PEOPLE looked that shit over! This is Jurassic Park all over again!

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edschweppe on April 12th, 2012 02:20 am (UTC)

I wouldn't expect it to be a problem. After all, there's already ethanol in the gasoline around here (the standard local blend is 10% alcohol) and it doesn't cause gas stations to blow up.

And if someone does provide an ignition source, I'd be a lot more worried about the tens of thousands of gallons of fuel in the station's tanks than I would be about that little hand dispenser.

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guppiecat on April 12th, 2012 02:40 am (UTC)

Yes. The problem with flammability is related to volatility and gasoline is MUCH more volatile than hand sanitizer. Adding the hand sanitizer is going to increase the danger about as much as adding wood would.

I'd be more concerned with the fact that over-use of hand sanitizer causes sanitizer-resistant germs to grow, so we're actually making the pumps biologically worse, not better.

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johnpalmer on April 12th, 2012 04:58 am (UTC)

I don't think that's the case with alcohol-based sanitizers - I could be wrong.

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xiphias on April 12th, 2012 11:15 am (UTC)

Bleach and ethanol don't have that problem the way that antibiotics do.

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xiphias on April 12th, 2012 11:17 am (UTC)

Yeah, I'm going to go with the majority and say that the extra inflammability provided by the hand sanitizer doesn't add anything significant to the inflammability provided by the gasoline.

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redneckgaijin on April 12th, 2012 03:38 pm (UTC)

"Lift handle and select regular unleaded, mid-range unleaded, supreme unleaded, or napalm."

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tomtac on April 13th, 2012 12:58 pm (UTC)

It -is- reminiscent of napalm, but it's alcohol. Anyway, I'm glad to have something that does some sort of disinfecting. (Even though that 'hand sanitizer' stuff doesn't work very much like washing with soap and water does.)

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