Help reduce/ban flame retardants in UK furniture

[melinab]

Reposting: Hi all, tomorrow is the deadline for the consultation that the UK government is making on Flame Retardants in Furniture. So far the UK has been unique in that it has required furniture to be tested for fire safety by testing each component alone - i.e. foam should be separately flame retardant, fabric should be separately flame retardant and so on. This strict requirement has resulted in the need for tons of toxic flame retardants in furniture. Other countries require the whole piece of furniture (as a whole) to be fire retardant which can be achieved by barrier methods between the foam and the outside, for example.

Unfortunately, the current proposal (the first document) does not deviate much from the previous regulations as it still requires that foam be tested separately in addition to the whole furniture not catching on fire quickly. Since foam is essentially in every piece of furniture, this doesn't lead to much change and most furniture will require a lot of chemical fire retardants.

Flame retardants are toxic - they increase risk of cancer, neurological issues, especially in kids, . While baby furniture is excluded (but not single beds) - kids are all over couches and other upholstered furniture.
Their use in saving lives from fire are debatable - there is evidence that if a furniture laden with flame retardants burns in a fire it may slow the fire for 15 seconds but it releases so many toxic chemicals that you may die anyways. Fire fighters are at much higher risk of cancer, for example.

Please go to the consultation page and write your opinion - it can be done online. Question 7 is the one that wants your opinion on whether foam should be tested separately. We don't have ANY evidence that such extra strictness saves more lives. But we know for sure that when 65 million people are exposed to those chemicals we definitely hurt people.

Please opine - last link in this post.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/24/massachusetts-flame-retardants-firefighters-safety-cancer#:~:text=The%20Massachusetts%20legislature%20approved%20a,it%20die%20without%20signing%20it.

https://www.breastcanceruk.org.uk/app/uploads/2019/08/Background_Briefing_Flame_retardants_21.9.17_IS_nw.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/smarter-regulation-fire-safety-of-domestic-upholstered-furniture

Sorry, but having been in a house fire, I’d only buy furniture that has been fire retardant treated to within an inch of its life.
You’re absolutely scaremongering regarding cancer and neurological issues.

It's not scaremongering. There's is a ton of evidence that says FRs are harmful to health.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-audit-committee/news/100328/government-accused-of-stalling-on-action-to-reduce-exposure-to-toxic-chemicals-in-homes/

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/flame_retardants/index.cfm

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/24/flame-retardants-everyday-products-toxics-guide

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/243413/experts-highlight-environmental-health-risks-current/#:~:text=The%20authors%20point%20to%20existing,%2C%20and%20cancer%2C%20among%20others.

There is also limited evidence as to their benefit in a fire - the thing that kills you is usually smoke not fire, and FRs release toxic chemicals making the smoke more likely to harm or kill you.

So your main concern about the new proposals is still requiring foam to be tested separately? Are there any other issues you foresee?

FR chemicals are used much less (if at all) in many countries - I believe Ikea don't use them in Sweden for example. What is the difference with their regulations compared to ours? Do you know? Could we go further and how?

One of my biggest concerns is product labelling - it's so hard to find out what chemicals/FRs products do and don't contain. I note that they are proposing the following for new products:

"(e) if the product contains chemical flame retardants, the words “This product contains chemical flame retardants to meet the requirements of The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 20XX”, and (f) if the product contains chemical flame retardants, a list of those chemical flame retardants"

This is one of the most important changes for me, as it does two things - allows consumers choice at the point of purchase, and helps consumers if certain flame retardants are found out to be harmful. At the moment, you have no idea if your old piece of furniture has brominated retardants for example. So your choice if you want to avoid them now you know it is harmful, is to throw out all your old furniture and risk throwing out perfectly good untreated furniture (which is of course very costly), or keep it and hope for the best! It's unacceptable that consumers aren't given the information they need to make their informed choice.

What do the fire brigade say?

Anecdotally, the firefighter I used to work with on education said that in the olden days, furniture was made of wood, wool, horsehair, metal and other things that burned with little smoke, not toxic and not the ultra-hot, very dangerous smoke.

He wished we'd all buy old furniture, reuse, recover with natural fibres and not buy any furniture made of foam and plastic.

That’s interesting. Firefighters are the ones who are exposed to the smoke on a regular basis and they’re also best placed to say if the current policy on flame retardants significantly slows the spread of fire.

The labeling is great but testing foam separately means that there will be a ton of flame retardants in furniture because the vast vast majority of furniture uses foam as it is such an easy and cheap product to use. So basically this will mean no real change to the requirement in effect even if there is change in the wording. There is no reason to have foam tested separately if the whole furniture does not catch fire in its final form. There is no evidence that that extra requirement saves lives. But it will require 67 million people to be exposed to chemical flame retardants. Each mattress has

Domestic fires are not as common as they used to be when people used cigarettes in their bed. In the UK 334 fire deaths occurred in 2021/2022. In Spain, a country with much more lax flame retardant requirements (not each component is tested) and more smoking, there were 204 such cases in 2021.

The average mattress contains 5-6 kg of chemical fire retardants in the UK. That is 5-6 kg of extra chemicals that you are exposed to every night. Your sofa is similar.

In the UK there are about 20K fires in a year but 1 in 2 people will get cancer. Not all cancer is caused by these chemicals obviously but the effects are additive, every exposure adds to your risks. These chemicals are endocrine disruptors and cause obesity and infertility as well.

Fire fighters lead the change in the US - pls see the article posted above in my first post.

And you should be allowed to make that choice. Just as other people should be allowed to make the other choice for themselves - to not be exposed to these chemicals. We are not calling for governments to ban the use of flame retardants. We are calling for them to not require their use by making reasonable fire safety requirements. A fire regulation that tests the whole furniture is just as good as one that requires the foam inside it to not catch a flame separately.

The risk of fire for me is minimal (though never non-existent, of course)- I don't smoke, I don't use candles or gas stoves, there is not even a match inside my house. Yet, I am required to sleep on 5-6 kgs of fire retardant chemicals every night. I would like the choice not to.

One of the reasons FRs are problematic is because if the effect of toxic fumes on firefighters. In the US that was one of the key reasons they have been banned in certain states:

www.saferstates.org/toxic-chemicals/toxic-flame-retardants/#:~:text=H.B.803%3A%20Prohibits%20toxic%20flame,upholstered%20furniture%20containing%20flame%20retardants.

"The average mattress contains 5-6 kg of chemical fire retardants in the UK. That is 5-6 kg of extra chemicals that you are exposed to every night. Your sofa is similar. "

Fuck me. Didn't know it was anything like that much. And that's degenerating over time and getting into our dust and our bodies and the environment. What a fucking shitshow.

Hi there, I registered because I need your help! I live in Malta and most of the things are from the UK and as I'm expecting a baby now I'm very worried because I don't know how to check if something has been treated or not. I am specifically interested in clothes and pajamas for babies and children and for adults, as well as bedding?
Do they have to be flame resistant by UK law?
Does it have to be written on the label if something has been treated/how do I recognize if it is?
For the baby, I shopped at Next and Mothercare (clothes and pyjamas), does anyone know if they treat with chemical flame retardants?
Thank you!

Hi, the Fire Brigade Union in their Record of Decisions 2023 number 33 concluded that flame retardant chemicals “provide negligible delay to ignition and worsen fire conditions”. They are concerned by how the flame retardants exacerbate smoke toxicity - because hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide are released.

The chemical usage might have made sense as we left the 1970s with nylon nighties and smoking on sofas. But we have moved on since then and we know a lot more about the health risks of flame retardants. Now 70% smokers have dropped to 14% and 80% of these smokers choose to smoke outdoors. Also 94% of us have smoke alarms and these really help. There is no evidence that the chemicals save any lives at all. There is clear evidence they harm our children.

Delyth