Flame Retardants
At Fidra, we’ve been looking into chemical pollutants of high environmental concern, and across the globe, flame retardants often top the list. Flame retardants are used in buildings, cars, electronics and furniture, where they are added to plastic and foams to try to stop the spread of fires. But these chemicals leak out of plastic and foam during use and disposal, getting into the environment. Once in the environment flame retardants don’t break down, in fact they are building up in people and wildlife around the world. Fidra focuses on the flame retardants in everyday products like mattresses and mobile phones, finding ways to stop them leaving a toxic legacy.
Furniture, mattresses and soft furnishings
The UK currently has some of the most onerous fire safety regulations worldwide for furniture and furnishings, yet our fire safety record mirrors that of countries with no regulations1. Time and again reports and reviews have discredited the opinion that our regulations lead to fewer fire deaths2,3. What they do achieve, is a much higher application of chemical flame retardants that have been linked to a wide range of health and environmental problems.
Electronics
Electronic equipment contains high quantities of chemical flame retardants; some TV casings contain so many harmful flame retardants that they make up almost one third of the total plastics weight. Flame retardants known to impact our hormones and cause cancer can leak out of electronics into our homes and bodies and impact the environment. When electronics are thrown away the problems continue. Flame retardants make responsible recycling more difficult and expensive, and new products made with recycled material have been found to contain the harmful flame retardants used in electronics. Incinerating electronics can release toxins that are more harmful than the original chemical, and leaching from landfill and recycling sites is another route for theses toxic chemicals into waterways and the atmosphere.
How flame retardants impact our health and environment
What does a sofa, a spatula and a sea bird have in common?
Flame retardants leach out of the products we fill our homes with, forming dust we can’t help but breath in and ingest. We find flame retardants, unfit for human consumption, in kitchen utensils and food packaging because our recycling has been contaminated with electronic waste. When split by demographic, research repeatedly shows highest intake in young infants, followed by toddlers, then older children4; we’ve found flame retardants in breast milk5. They escape from manufacturing facilities, our homes and disposal facilities, where they persist in the environment and concentrate up food chains. They have been found in wildlife across the globe, from penguins in the south to polar bears in the north6,7. There are flame retardants in the eggshells of the Bass Rock gannets, long-term neighbours of Fidra’s hometown, North Berwick.
Are we any closer to safer furniture?
Our current ‘furniture and furnishings regulations’ were established in 1988 and, despite being recommended for update as far back as 2010 and acknowledged by the government to be ineffective in 2014, remain untouched. The past ten years have seen two proposed revisions, two public consultations and the promise of a third, accusations of misconduct and covert lobbying and a whistleblowing case brought forward by the former lead civil servant on the review. And still we are no closer to updating the original regulations.
How we tackle flame retardants
To protect ourselves, future generations and our environment, we need to reduce our reliance on these harmful chemicals.
Current regulations are insufficient in safeguarding the environment, we need sound chemical management for a healthy and functioning circular economy. This should include an end to the unnecessary use of chemicals and an end to the use of chemicals of concern for all non-essential functions as well as transparent and accessible information for all on the chemicals used. We need to know about the chemicals in our products whether we are a manufacturer, consumer or recycler. Information about chemicals in products can inform decisions at the point sale as well as in reuse, recycling and disposal.
We are highlighting the threat flame retardants pose to people, wildlife and a circular economy, and highlighting ways we can stop these chemicals limiting both reuse and recycling and prevent them contaminating recycled products. Fidra submitted written evidence on the impacts of flame retardants in electronics to the UK Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee and were invited to give oral evidence to MPs in June 2020 on how we address flame retardant use. We also submitted evidence to this on this Select Committee’s Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Life inquiry, which highlighted the issues with UK furniture regulations. Furniture regulations were set up with the intention to protect life, however the reality is ineffective fire safety and increased exposure to harmful chemicals, resulting in a wider threat to society and the environment. Fidra are calling for legislative action that removes the regulatory barriers and allows fire safety to be achieved without toxic chemicals in furniture.
What you can do
- Find out more about the impacts on flame retardants on wildlife
- Read our summary of why we are still waiting for furniture regulation that could cut toxic chemicals
- Sign up below to stay informed on Fidra’s work and find out how you can use your influence to help us call for change.