Environment & Flame Retardants
The effects of flame retardants in the environment
Flame retardants migrate out of products and accumulate in the environment. Many flame retardants are persistent and can undergo long-range environmental transport. Flame retardants enter the environment through multiple pathways, such as emission during manufacturing, from products in use, and combustion, leaching from landfills, or recycling at the end of the product‘s life. Since their introduction, FRs have become widespread global contaminants and have been detected throughout the world in air, water, soil, sediment, sludge, dust, bivalves, crustaceans, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and humans.
This Alliance wants to ensure that legislation and requirements in all markets balance three aspects: Fire Safety, Chemical Safety and Circularity. With the upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the European institutions and Member States have the perfect opportunity and framework for delivering to this objective, by linking a smoulder ignition test to the upcoming Regulation or implementing measures, introducing EN 1021/1 as a reference standard for compliance with flammability requirements, whenever these are in place at national level. The cigarette test (EN 1021) would be a suitable solution across the EU, as it would allow for full-scale production of furniture without flame retardants. This will not only reduce exposure to harmful chemicals but also boost the potential of the European furniture industries of transitioning to a more circular economy.
Relevant position papers & studies
European Furniture Industries Confederation position on the Commission proposal for an Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation
Industry needs support to ensure compliance with the Regulation, such as for example with harmonised flammability requirements across EU to ensure that unwanted toxic flame retardants are not used. Many flame retardants have been documented to be harmful for the environment and human health. The cigarette test (EN 1021) would be a suitable solution across the EU, as it would allow for full-scale production of furniture without flame retardants.
The Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture welcomes the US law mandating nationwide compliance with California’s flammability standard for upholstered furniture and calls for harmonising flammability requirements for furniture in Europe via upcoming Sustainable Products Initiative
The Alliance for Flame Free Furniture welcomes the ‘COVID-19 Regulatory Relief and Work from Home Safety Act’ passed by the United States congress and signed into law on December 27, 2020, requiring that all upholstered seating for furniture imported or sold in the US comply with the flammability test specified by the California Technical Bulletin 117-2013 (TB 117 – 2013), a smoulder test.
The “San Antonio Statement on Brominated and Chlorinated Flame Retardants” addresses the growing concern in the scientific community about the persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic properties of brominated and chlorinated organic flame retardants.
The consensus statement has over 200 signatories from 30 countries, representing expertise on health, environment and fire safety.
The statement was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, December 2010.
Flame retardants migrate to arctic sediment
“Organophosphate ester (OPEs) flame retardants travel long distances and researchers have measured them in Arctic Ocean sediments.
As concerns grew over PBDEs, manufacturers turned to OPEs as alternative flame retardants, but scientists are concerned that these replacements may also meet the Stockholm Convention’scriteria for POPs.
Not much is known about the human health effects of OPEs, yet some governments have listed them as cancer-causing agents, and in vitro and animal data suggest that the compounds may be endocrine disrupters—so they may meet the criterion of toxicity.
They do not appear to increase in concentration as they move up the food chain, although like the brominated retardants they are replacing, OPEs readily escape into the environment and have been found in fish and in human breast milk, research shows”.
Many organizations, including the U.S. EPA and the United Nations, have expressed concerns about consumers’ continued exposure to these hazardous flame retardants through reincorporation of recycled materials into new products. “Millions of pounds of foam that is flame retarded with pentaBDE or an alternative have been, and will be, sold and used in homes throughout the United States as carpet cushions.
Direct exposure to millions of consumers from these sources is possible,” warned the EPA in 2005. EPA explained, “as carpet padding ages, foam dust will be generated and become airborne with traffic on carpet. This presents a particular exposure potential for children, who spend time on the floor.” Additionally, the flame retardants volatilize and are deposited onto household dust, which creates further potential exposure.
A 2016 study indicates that inhalation is also a significant exposure route for several of the replacement flame retardants.
Quotes
“Once buried as waste, flame-retardants move through soil as rainfall percolates underground to contaminate both ground and surface waters. Residues of flame retardants persist in sewage treatment effluent released into rivers, lakes, and oceans. […] Flame retardants are now detectable in whales, in polar bears, and in many species of fish and marine mammals, demonstrating the global scale of movement and contamination”.
“Pollutants entering the deep sea are deposited in sediments and can readilyaccumulate in the food chain. Studies on deep-sea organisms have reported higher concentrations than in nearby surface-water species.
However, although these studies are described as ‘deep sea’, they rarely extend beyond the continental shelf (<2,000 m), so contamination at greater distances from shore and at extreme depths is hitherto unknown”.
“Flame retardant chemicals are known to bevery persistant, have a long-standing impact on the environment. Some of them have been found to exhibit traits congruents with those of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Scientific researches has been detecting a high propensity forbioaccumalation in the fatty tissue of living organism and toxicity to both humans and wildlife”.