Dave Mayer

OK - so I skimmed the sheets. As expected, the Regular is close to 100% petroleum distillates. Basically medium-chain hydrocarbon molecules, somewhere between butane and paraffin wax. You would not drink this, but there a lot more toxic things out in the world. Left out in the environment for a few days, the combination of UV light and atmospheric oxygen will eventually crack all of these molecules down to CO2 and water.

The 'Green' product shows a composition of Hydrotreated light distillate (petroleum) 15.0-40.0% so the same stuff as the Regular product.

But this is what almost caused me to choke on my pulled-pork sandwich: "Additional Chemical Specific percentage of composition is being withheld as a trade secret." Ha ha. Given the top secret spec sheet, who knows what else is in the mix... Probably mostly water and perhaps some alcohols such as ethanol or methanol and some acids. Since these polar molecules are inherently poor solvents for non-polar molecules that make up oils and greases, the 'Green' product will be inferior to the the 'Regular' product.


Green products also contain a high percentage of virtue-signaling and smug eco-righteousness.

Iride01 

Yeah, I don't know when it happened but I too used to look a MSDS's and see how one compared to another or whether I was being hooked for something already in my shop and less expensive.

But sometime in the last ten or so years I've seen that claim more and more. Don't know if there was a change in regulatory info, or just that more decided to go with that loophole.

cyccommute 

A material safety data sheet only has to list materials that have a safety hazard associated with them. Those hazards can be flammability or toxicity. If the materials being used aren’t flammable nor toxic, they don’t have to be listed. For the “green” mineral spirits, the only toxic or flammable material is the petroleum distillate. If it had ethanol or methanol or an acid of some kind (although the latter wouldn’t do anything for helping mix the nonpolar mineral spirits with water), those would have to be listed. I suspect that the unlisted material is some kind of surfactant that is neither flammable nor hazardous and doesn’t have to be listed.

I would also say that the “greenness” of these mineral spirits is very much in question. Since it contains mineral spirits, at some point there could be enough water present to break the emulsion and cause the mineral spirits to separate. Mineral spirits aren’t easily degradable. You don’t want to go pouring the stuff down a sink any more then you’d pour regular mineral spirits down a sink.

ramzilla

Just go get a couple liters of diesel fuel and fuhgetabowdit!