[Pharmwaste] Flame retardant raises health concerns

DeBiasi,Deborah dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
Mon Mar 26 15:43:14 EDT 2007


http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/03/22/flameretardant/


Flame retardant raises health concerns

by Sasha Aslanian, Minnesota Public Radio
March 22, 2007

Minnesota lawmakers are considering banning something you may have never
heard of, but probably have in your home. It's a flame retardant
commonly found in electronics and furniture. 

Supporters of the ban say the chemicals are toxic, and closely related
to chemicals already banned in the European Union and California.
Manufacturers say flame retardants save lives, and there aren't good
substitutes. 

St. Paul, Minn. - At the Minnesota state Capitol on a recent afternoon,
environmentalists were zapping TV sets, computers and furniture with an
analyzer gun. 

A Toshiba television set in the Secretary of State's office gave them
what they were looking for: 14 percent bromine. 

Bromine has been widely used in flame retardants since the 1970s, in
everything from TV sets to upholstery backing. But recently some
scientists have become concerned. 

They're investigating the flame retardant's potential links to cancer,
developmental problems in children's brains and interference with the
immune system. 

"There was so much data for their universal occurrence in the
environment -- in sediment, sand and soil, in wildlife and people --
that it was just a real awakening."
- Linda Birnbaum, Environmental Protection AgencyKathleen Schuler of the
Institute on Agriculture and Trade Policy, the environmental group with
the analyzer, wants to find other ways to protect people from fires.
"We're not saying that it's going to make them sick, or that it's
necessarily going to create an unhealthy environment," she said. "What
we're talking about is putting toxic substances in objects when we know
there are safer alternatives." 

Schuler's group pushed for a ban on brominated flame retardants in
Minnesota three years ago. At that time, California banned two
brominated flame retardants. The main manufacturer, Great Lakes
Chemicals, voluntarily ceased production. 

But the most common brominated flame retardant, known as "deca," is
still widely used. 

Deca prevents things like TVs from catching on fire and stops fires from
spreading. Flame retardant makers say their products save hundreds of
lives a year. 

Steve Maki, vice president for technology at RTP, a Winona company,
drove to the State Capitol twice this year to testify against the
proposed ban. His company makes the plastic that ends up in things like
light switches and electrical connectors. 

"One of our biggest applications would be timer components that go into
washing machines or dryers," he said. "Sometimes when you hear the
washing machine and turn the dial to set the cycle on your washing
machine, they need to pass a certain flammability requirement." 

To keep that plastic from burning, RTP mixes in deca. Maki brings out a
small vial that looks like powdered sugar. 

"We handle this material in its raw form, which is the exact powder," he
said. "We've been using it for 25 years here at RTP. We use lots of it,
and we've never had a single incident with health or environmental
concern with this additive." 

In its lab in Winona, RTP does flame tests on its products. Engineers
reach into a compartment that looks like a big oven with a sliding door,
and use Bunsen burners to try to light things on fire. 

In this test, one piece of plastic that looks like a white popsicle
stick has deca in it. The other one, a clear stick of plastic, doesn't. 

The deca-treated stick stops burning as soon as the burner is pulled
away. The blackened plastic smokes then snuffs out. 

"You saw how quickly -- it was probably a second or so that fire goes
out," Maki said. 

But the plastic with no flame retardant curls like melted wax. 

"The whole bar is engulfed in flame right now. There's dripping
particles of polypropelene igniting whatever source is below," he said.
"This bar is going to burn all the way up. There isn't going to be
anything else. If you had a component made with this type, it would
totally consume itself." 

Maki said RTP does work with alternatives to deca, but it doesn't find
them as effective, especially in the plastic used to make switches,
battery casings and things like that washing machine dial. 

Maki said about 10 years ago, his company started tracking developments
in Europe, where scientists first began raising concerns about
brominated flame retardants. 

A Swedish researcher found the chemicals showing up in human breast
milk. That set off a flurry of international research to see where else
they might turn up. "I felt like I had been hit by a speeding train,"
said Linda Birnbaum, the director of the experimental toxicology
division at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Birnbaum said by
2001, all the new data about flame retardants was unsettling. 

"Not only were they associated with a multitude of effects in animal
studies, but there was so much data for their universal occurrence in
the environment -- not only in sediment, sand and soil, but in wildlife
and people -- that it was just a real awakening," she said. 

The flame retardants have three traits scientists like Birnbaum worry
about -- they are persistent, they accumulate in living creatures and
they are toxic. 

"There's clear evidence for deca in fish, birds, marine mammals, polar
bears, also in people." she said. 

Birnbaum said North Americans have levels of flame retardants in their
bodies approximately 10 times higher than Europeans or Japanese, and
they are doubling every two to five years. Those levels include flame
retardants that have been phased out but are still circulating in the
environment. 

But it's not clear what that means. EPA official policy says there is
insufficient information currently available to determine that deca
presents an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. 

Since 2001, bromine manufacturers have participated in a voluntary
program with the EPA to monitor possible effects of flame retardants on
children. 

"I think it would be fair to say U.S. EPA is all over this subject,"
said John Kyte, the North American policy director for the Bromine
Science and Environmental Forum, an industry group. 

He said given the EPA's attention, there's no reason for states like
Minnesota to ban the chemicals. 

"The fact that the U.S. EPA has literally dozens of programs looking at
deca, ongoing analysis, checking from every possible perspective,
suggests to me that these activities at the state level are unnecessary
-- and could actually lead to an inconsistent patchwork of legislation
that causes more problems than it solves," he said. No state has banned
deca, but nine are considering it. 

Europe has been the biggest battleground for chemical regulation, and
that's put some pressure on global manufacturers to find alternatives. 

Mark Rossi, research director from Clean Production Action in
Massachusetts, flew in to meet with Minnesota lawmakers. He said big
companies like Sony, Philips and Panasonic are moving away from using
deca, but legislation would ensure every manufacturer does. 

"We're seeing the shift happen in TV manufacturers," he said. "Where
some of them have said Europe is getting out of this chemical, we're
getting out of this chemical. Now in the U.S., 57 percent are deca free.
Companies are making these decisions, deca free and bromine free, by
2010." 

Rossi said there's no perfectly safe replacement for deca, but there are
improvements. The ideal, he says, is to make products with naturally
flame resistant materials so extra chemicals aren't necessary. 

The Minnesota Professional Firefighters say they would support the ban. 

A coalition of other fire safety groups, including the Minnesota State
Fire Chiefs Association, opposes the ban, but supports a study of deca. 

**********

[12/22/06] EPA announced an external peer review panel meeting to review
the recently released draft documents entitled, "Toxicological Review of
Decabromodiphenyl Ether (BDE-209): In Support of Summary Information in
the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)" (NCEA-S-2540).

http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=161848


Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permit Programs
Industrial Pretreatment/Toxics Management Program
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 (NEW!)
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028
FAX:      804-698-4032



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