I've heard from others that it's readily absorbed by water. That's bad in the ground water case, but it seems it might be a positive when trying to clean up a (contained) spill.
It appears to me to have a relatively high lethal dosage (my back of the napkin calculations are saying a 200 pound human would have to orally ingest almost a liter of it to reach the LD50 dosage--but again don't quote me on that number because I am not an expert and could have very easily messed up the math or the concept of a lethal dose).
So, while I agree there might be unknown long term issues, it does appear to be a relatively low probability of that since it seems to be on the less pernicious side.
In some plastics the monomer is toxic, but the polymerized form is safe. (I think it was use for windshields for planes, so once polymerized it was probably safe to touch at least.)
In this case it was an uncontrolled reaction so I'm not sure if someone knows the exact current composition of the goo, so I strongly recommend to avoid licking it.
This is common. Isocyanates are a common example — isocyanate monomers are nasty, and the very light ones are very nasty. They’re used to make polyurethane, polyurea and such, which are quite nontoxic in polymerized form.
In applications where the unreacted isocyanates are used by anyone other than professionals (e.g. two component varnishes), the manufacturer may go out of their way to use more expensive but less toxic variants.
Additionally it is almost certainly not in vapor form at 100 degrees. In sunlight it will also polymerize to a solid pretty quickly.
As such you'd practically have to drink it inside to hit the ld50.
The explosion would be much worse than a release of liquid or vapor based MMA during the day, and here it almost certainly solidified at this point
Also, vitamin C is not volatile, so there is no risk of inhaling it as a gas.
The overall point remains the same: the toxicity, both short and long term, of MMA, is comparable to lots of everyday substances that are both commonly eaten and inhaled.
It just isn't that toxic as far as chemicals go. That doesn't mean it would be like great for you but calling it "highly toxic" is tremendously overblown and doesnt serve anyone well to claim.
Let's save the highly toxic claim for things that actually deserve it. We don't have to sensationalize everything. I maintain my view that the explosion would likely be much much worse than the odds of significant respiratory damage from MMA.
Also note the sensationalization also causes placebo effect. People miles away started claiming "their lungs hurt" when
1. There was no leak
2. Even if their was and it was a conspiracy or whatever, your lungs have ~no pain receptors and your chest/pleura/etc would generally not hurt from MMA overexposure. Your throat would and your skin would, depending on concentration. But nobody complained about skin irritation when the is basically no way to end up with one without the other.
Etc.
Sensationalization of this hurt people so far more than the actual issue!
Some quick searching suggests that it’s toxic but not even close to “insanely toxic”. And it’s not persistent in the environment.
If you want a genuinely nasty chemical, check out methyl isocyanate, which is some two orders of magnitude more acutely toxic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethylmercury#Safety
- considerably more deadlier, and the mercury an element - so no clever chemical reactions can break it down into innocuous CO2, H2O, and N2.
It’s toxic but not insanely toxic. Isocyanates, phosgene, gaseous cyanides - now those are insanely toxic