What do you think of this ?

http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/new-york-schools-forced-to-ditch-pcb-tainted-lighting/

Just exactly where are the supposed PCBs coming from? 

Probably from the cheap low cost caulking, as well from the drywall made from contaminated clay. Both are problems that have been around for a while, but the lighting is easier to blame rather than mass removal and toxic waste disposal of the walls and doors. They will probably find it in the vinyl flooring as well, used as both a fire retardant and plasticiser.

some of the older building will have gallons of PCB oiled filled transformers.but there other sources of PCB caps in older HVAC equipment as well, even old tube operated TVs and radios will have oiled filled PCB caps. because of the dielectric insulating property., in some plastic, chaulking compound, many more on the list.

 but if those ballast treated with respect and look for tube just about go eol and replace them would help prolong the ballast life. and this reduce overheating and leakage on the ballast.

  replacing the the ballast all at once in schools it like supporting a superfund clean up site by thowing away perfectly working ballast all at once. witch i am not a fan of that. which can be replace gradually when times comes. there are tell tell signs that those ballast is overheating and should be respected. they could run around the building with a laser thermometer point at the fixture and replace the one that is out of temperature range. that my opinion. most school districts are on tight budgets make it cost prohibited
to do this all at once.

but if those ballast treated with respect and look for tube just about go eol and replace them would help prolong the ballast life. and this reduce overheating and leakage on the ballast.

  replacing the the ballast all at once in schools it like supporting a superfund clean up site by thowing away perfectly working ballast all at once. witch i am not a fan of that. which can be replace gradually when times comes. there are tell tell signs that those ballast is overheating and should be respected. they could run around the building with a laser thermometer point at the fixture and replace the one that is out of temperature range. that my opinion. most school districts are on tight budgets make it cost prohibited
to do this all at once.

Doing this spot replacement become often very expensive on the labor related expenses. It take way shorter time per ballast, when all are replaced at once, then when the maintenance guy have to go to spot replace each separately. And this cause usually way higher total expenses then the fractional cost (the purchase cost multiplied by the unused fraction of their lifetime - because only this fraction is wasted) of the "prematurely" replaced equipment. And when calling a service man mean he have to travel (even few miles), the transport cost make the spot replacement extremely expensive (one travel frequently cost more then single ballast and definitely more then few lamps) in the long run...
So with proper maintenance fund management (so money are spared over the time and so form enough budget for the investment), the complete overhaul is the way to save the tight budget money on the bottom line...

Knowing that there are PCBs in places other than fluorescent ballasts, I would think that unless overheating ballasts are a problem, they should focus first on more accessible things like window caulking before changing the ballasts. I am not saying not to replace them, only to carefully consider the priorities. The students have more chances of coming into contact with the window caulking than from leaking substances from fluorescent ballast. Also, ballasts containing PCBs are completely harmless unless they leak the oil containing it. Window caulking is usually exposed to ambiant air.

The people that are worried about hazardous materials are very often removing thm in the worst possible way

In Israel many buildings and especially sheds were built in the 60's - 70's (- 80's ?) with sheets of wavy asbestos as the roof material (and many of those sheds are still up). In a junior school in my town some of the exterior walls of the building were covered with hard asbestos sheets (possibly as thermal isolation) on the outside (so not accessible place for kids). The walls have been painted over for many years at least, so no exposed asbestos

One day in the end of summer exactly last days before 1/sep, they just began removing them - drilling, cutting, breaking, disposing, all dry asbestos. Now, you can be sure that there is asbestos dust all over the place which will be dissipated in the wind over time. Whoever initiated the removal is proably sleeping well now knowing that kids won't be exposed to asbestos at that school in the new year

Please think before going ahead messing with hazardous substances

Problem with PCB in lighting fixtures is that the internal capacitors slowly start to lose their dielectric oil either by leakage or vaporization through aging gaskets. These caps have had already many hours behind them under hot conditions. The result is that the concentration of PCBs in the interior air can be measured (up to tenths of ng/m3). This will lead to chronic exposure of the people occupying the interior. Especially young people are at risk since they are still physically and mentally developing.

During my kindergarten/elementary school years I also had in my classroom fluorescent lighting fixtures containing PCB capacitors (Philips). But it was 15 years after that when I found out... I hope they were not leaky.

Regarding the NY schools, this is just another heritage from Monsanto/GE who heavily advocated the sale and use of PCB while knowing the harmful effects of PCB on human health.

http://www.pcbinschools.org/dioxin2008_Sullivan_Paper.pdf
http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/Schools/upload/SM_POL_PCB_Schools.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto
http://planetwaves.net/response.html
http://www.foxriverwatch.com/monsanto2a_pcb_pcbs.html

The reasons I accept for removing/replacing an old ballast:
- The old ballast stop working or is otherwise defective (start leaking,...)
- The old ballast is expected to stop working soon (other ballasts of the same age and type start failing recently)
- The old ballast may become a thread for other replacement (e.g. electronic) ballasts on the same circuit

Probably from the cheap low cost caulking, as well from the drywall made from contaminated clay. Both are problems that have been around for a while, but the lighting is easier to blame rather than mass removal and toxic waste disposal of the walls and doors. They will probably find it in the vinyl flooring as well, used as both a fire retardant and plasticiser.

I was thinking the same thing. They used PCB's in a whole list of everyday things at one time. When I read this, I figured they did a random test, found the PCB's, panicked, and someone said.."Hey, those ballasts are full of them....". I was never aware that PCB's gave off fumes from ballasts unless there was an actual fire. Either way, most schools and everywhere else are converting to T-8 anyway.

Probably the pcb's are from the old rapid start/instant start MAGNETIC ballasts which were once potted with PCB's.

they are potted with an asphalt compound.the pcb's are in the capacitors.
i have seen these capacitors bulging badly enough that the terminals were leaned outward 45 degrees from level.still not leaking.its much adoo about nothing.
maybe an isolated batch or brand/type is known to be leakers but in my experience this is rare.
had a 60's vintage 8' tulamp in our new shop that didnt work.ballast was burned to a crisp along with the wiring.no oil leakage noted.huge black splatter where the leads burned off and holes arced through the case.tossed the ballast but kept the fixture.nice heavy steel.

Probably the pcb's are from the old rapid start/instant start MAGNETIC ballasts which were once potted with PCB's.

Our school (built in 1980) was enirely Switch Start with dry vacuum impregnated Eltam Mini N40 ballasts and dry polyester SH PFC capacitors in the fixtures

The janitor told me that several rows of classrooms had defective capacitors - they would explode randomly, which was a common occurence in the 1st 1-2 years of the school opening, then decayed (There was 1 occasion which happened when i studied there, the capacitor made 25 years by then - i smelled something burning and went to see what is up, light fixture going up in smoke while still lighting)

I dont remember anyone making big noise about it allthough the bang did scare the ghost out of some people

Back in the early 60's, I went to an elementary school that was built in 1948 and the classroom lights were all 40w preheats. You can bet these ballasts had PCB capacitors. One day, a ballast shorted out and filled the classroom with acrid smoke. We were told to go into the hallway while the janitor removed the lamps from that fixture which would stop the ballast from working. To this day, all of my classmates in that class are alive and well and this was in 1964.

This just proves to me that people today just way overreact about something so trivial.

People today are just looking to where to claim their lawsuits. If they can object to something, they'll do it no matter what, even if they'll intentionally trigger the danger condition they sue against. See the story with the asbestos i told above

They also want the ones in charge to appear to be doing something. See road safety in Israel, where you can drive on the opposite traffic's lane all the way no problem but turning on your HID headlights will get you pulled over in seconds thanks to our legislators