Executive Summary
A class of brominated flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) are under assault from environmental activists and regulators both in the United States and overseas. Flame retardants give people more time to escape a fire by delaying flashover, the explosive-like eruption of flames responsible for most of the fatalities and property damage in residential fires. PBDEs are particularly effective flame retardants and have long been widely used in the manufacture of televisions and other electrical equipment, furniture, and mattresses.
Fire retardants truly save lives. Their use in television cabinets alone is estimated to save 190 lives a year in the U.S. In the United Kingdom, where materials used in many home furnishings must be fire-resistant, researchers reckon the regulations have spared about 1,150 lives and prevented almost 13,500 injuries over the course of a decade.
Nevertheless, U.S. and European regulators have effectively banned two of the three most prominent PBDE flame retardants. An assortment of states, environmental groups, and foreign governments, moreover, is seeking to ban the third one (i.e., decaBDE) as well, even though there is no credible evidence that the chemical represents a danger to humans or the environment. Numerous studies, in fact, have concluded that our exposure to the compound is minimal and does not pose an adverse health risk for people at expected exposures.
Current evidence shows that the benefits of PBDE flame retardants, in terms of lives saved and injuries prevented, far outweigh any demonstrated or likely negative health effects from their use.
Introduction
Life-saving flame-retardant chemicals are under assault. Ignoring the vitally important role these compounds play in preventing or slowing fires, environmental activists advocate banning certain flame retardants on the grounds that biomonitoring studies have found trace amounts of the chemicals in humans, including in breast milk. They hope to get various governmental authorities in the U.S. and overseas to impose strict prohibitions on these flame-retardant chemicals.
At issue is a class of brominated flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs). Within this group, three commercial mixtures of PBDEs are: penta-, octa-, and decaBDE. Each product is a mixture of diphenyl ethers with varying degrees of bromination. (ECB 2002b) These particular PBDEs have widely and frequently been used as flame retardants in furniture foam (pentaBDE); plastics for TV cabinets, consumer electronics, wire insulation, and backcoatings for draperies and upholstery (decaBDE); and plastics for personal computers and small appliances (octaBDE). The chemicals increase valuable escape time in cases of fire by slowing both ignition and the rate of fire growth. (USEPA 2005a)
Efforts to ban these chemicals are deadly serious business. In the U.S., someone dies in a fire every two hours and ten minutes, and the vast majority (85 percent) of these non-firefighter, civilian deaths occur in home fires. The fire death rate is 14.8 persons for every one million Americans. (BFRIP 2002) In view of the public debate and regulatory reviews of PBDEs, a look at some flame-retardancy facts is in order.
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