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Toxic Flame Retardants: What You Need to Know

In North America each year, over fifty million pounds of the toxic flame retardant deca-bromodiphenylether (decaBDE) are built into TVs, mattresses, and other products. New York has already banned two - pentaBDE and octaBDE. The last of this group of toxic flame retardants still in widespread use, decaBDE, accumulates in people and the environment, damages developing brains, and breaks down into the more dangerous, already banned BDEs. State agencies in Washington, Maine and Michigan have identified cost-effective and equally fire-safe solutions for virtually every application. It's time for this dangerous and unnecessary chemical to go the way of PCBs and DDT: New York should phase out decaBDE.

Problem: A toxic threat to children's health

  • DecaBDE damages developing brains. It delays brain development and causes adult learning and behavior problems in lab animals exposed early in life, according to the latest research.1
  • DecaBDE degrades into even more toxic chemicals. Both in the environment and through metabolic processes in animals, decaBDE breaks down into more toxic chemicals including dioxins and two forms of PBDEs already banned by the New York State legislature in 2004.2
  • DecaBDE is increasing in the environment and our bodies. Because it leaches out of products and is easily transported through the air, decaBDE is found worldwide in increasing concentrations- in household dust, the air we breathe, the food we eat, and our blood and breast milk.3
  • Children suffer the greatest exposure to decaBDE. Toddlers have more blood-borne decaBDE than older children, who in turn have more than adults. Studies suggest young children's exposure to PBDEs is up to 300 times greater than that of adults, primarily from breast milk and dust ingestion.4

Solution: Fire safety with safer chemicals and processes

  • Safer, cost- and performance-effective, affordable flame retardants are available for all decaBDE uses. Alternatives include, for TVs: phosphorus-based flame retardants and inherently flame resistant metals and woods; and for textiles: naturally flame resistant barriers and additives including boric acid and phosphates.5
  • Many companies have already phased out decaBDE. The entire computer industry and TV makers such as Sony, Samsung, and Phillips already meet the highest fire safety standards without decaBDE.6 Mattresses are decaBDE-free now and won't require it to meet tough new federal fire safety standards effective in July.7
  • Fire fighters are calling for decaBDE phase-out. The International Association of Fire Fighters urges deca-BDE phase-out, because in a fire, it endangers fire fighters by releasing highly corrosive hydrogen bromide.8

Act Now: Support a Deca Phase-out in New York State

Companies, institutions and governments are eliminating decaBDE, and New York should too.9 Because of the threat to human health and the environment, and the ready availability of safer, cost- and performance-effective fire retardants, Clean New York, a statewide advocacy group working to empower women to advocate on their own behalf for environmental health and justice, strongly urges your support of a phase out of decaBDE.

Assemblyman Sweeney and Senator Marcellino, both Chairs of their respective Environmental Conservation Committees, have introduced bills to remove deca from televisions, computer enclosures and mattresses.  Click here for the Assembly bill and here for the Senate bill.

You can make a difference!  Contact your Assemblymember (switchboard: 518-455-4100) and Senator (switchboard: 518-455-2800) and ask them to show their support for this important legislation by co-sponsoring the bill in their house.

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Supporters

The following organizations express their support for a decaBDE phase-out in New York State.

  • Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer
  • Children's Environmental Health Partnership
  • Clean New York
  • Clean Production Action
  • Grassroots Environmental Education
  • Great Lakes United
  • Great Neck Breast Cancer Action Coalition
  • Healthy Schools Network
  • Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition
  • Learning Disabilities Association of NYS
  • New York State Nurses Association
  • Prevention is the Cure, Inc.

Washington State has already banned PBDEs. The following states have introduced legislation similar to that currently proposed for New York State:

  • California
  • Hawaii
  • Illinois
  • Maine
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Montana

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Notes & References

 1 DecaBDE toxicity: Cressey MA, EA Reeve, DC Rice, and VP Markowski, "Behavioral Impairments Produced by Developmental Exposure to the Flame Retardant decaBDE," presented at the annual meeting of the Behavioral Toxicology Society, September 16-17, 2006.

2DecaBDE's toxic biproducts: Stapleton H, "Brominated Flame Retardants: Assessing DecaBDE Debromination in the Environment," prepared for the EPHA-Environmental Network, May 2006. Heather Stapleton, PhD is an environmental chemist at Duke

3 Rising levels of decaBDE in the environment: Illinois EPA report to the legislature, DecaBDE Study: A Review of Available Research, February 2006; and Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Brominated Flame Retardants: Third annual Report to the Maine Legislature, January 2007.

4 DecaBDE as a children's health threat: Fischer D, K Hooper, M Athanasiadou, I Athanassiadis, and A Bergman, "Children Show Highest Levels of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in a California Family of Four: A Case Study," Environmental Health Perspectives, 114: 1581-1584 (2006): “This case study suggests that children are at higher risk for PBDE exposures and, accordingly, face higher risks of PBDE-related health effects than adults;” Jones-Otazo, H et al. "Is house dust the missing exposure pathway for PBDEs? An analysis of the urban fate and human exposure to PBDEs," Environmental Science and Technology, 39(14):5121-5130 (2005); and Stapleton, H. et al., “Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in House Dust and Clothes Dryer Lint.” Environmental Science and Technology, 39(4):925-31 (2005).

5 Fire-safe alternatives: Pure Strategies Inc., Decabromodiphenylether: An Investigation of Non-Halogen Substitutes in Electronic Enclosure and Textile Applications, prepared for Lowell Center for Sustainable Production, University of Massachusetts Lowell, April 2005: “… nearly all (electronic) manufacturers have the technology and know-how to meet the demand for decaBDE-free products that meet strict fire safety standards;” and Geller, Mattresses and Deca-BDE, Washington Department of Ecology, September 12, 2006: “For … mattresses, upholstered furniture, and draperies, there are numerous non-halogenated fiber, fabric, chemical treatment, and barrier product options that when carefully combined, can replace the use of decaBDE.”

6 Television companies phasing out decaBDE: Rossi M & L Heine, The Green Screen for Safer Chemicals – Version 1.0: Evaluating Environmentally Preferable Flame Retardants for TV Enclosures, draft, October 2006. Rossi and Heine are two PhD analysts with Clean Production Action and GreenBlue. The leading Deca alternative is RDP, which is phosphate-based, not persistent or bioaccumulative, and is less toxic than decaBDE.

7 Mattresses are fire-safe without decaBDE: Geller 2006 (see note 5): “… Deca-BDE is not currently being used in mattresses, and is not being considered to meet the CPSC [fire safety] standard.”

8 Firefighters support decaBDE phase-out: Duffy, Richard, assistant to the general president, International Association of Firefighters, in a letter on behalf of the association to Kelly Fox, president, Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, January 26, 2007: "IAFF believes that the passage of legislation banning brominated flame retardants . . . is a step in the right direction from improving the health and safety of our fire fighters . . ."

9 Jurisdictions phasing out decaBDE: The European Union has banned decaBDE in electronics and Sweden has banned it in textiles. Maine legislation passed in 2004 sets a goal of phasing out Deca by January 1, 2008 if a safer, alternative is available. (Chapter 629, LD 1790). The European Union and nine states, including New York, have banned penta and octaBDE.

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