Are Flame Retardants Putting Us at Risk? (Part 1)

  • PBDEs are used in a lot of our products, including couches, to make them resistant to flames. (Photo by Fastily from Wikimedia Commons)

Flame retardant chemicals are used in hundreds of products in our homes and offices and schools. The chemicals can slow the spread of fire. But certain kinds of these chemicals leach out of our couches, our TVs, our carpet padding and many other things in our homes. And they’re getting into our bodies. In the first of our five part series, Rebecca Williams tries to find out what’s in the products in her own home:

Transcript

Flame retardant chemicals are used in hundreds of products in our homes and offices and schools. The chemicals can slow the spread of fire. But certain kinds of these chemicals leach out of our couches, our TVs, our carpet padding and many other things in our homes. And they’re getting into our bodies. In the first of our five part series… Rebecca Williams tries to find out what’s in the products in her own home:

A few months ago, I never really thought about flame retardants. I knew some of these chemicals were probably in my house, but I kind of just shrugged it off.

But then I had a baby. And that made me want to take another look.

The chemicals I’m talking about are called PBDEs. That’s polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

Some of these PBDEs have been phased out. But there’s a good chance your couch and chairs and carpet padding still have these chemicals in them. You’re probably surrounded by PBDEs and you will be for a long time.

That worries some scientists and doctors. That’s because hundreds of peer-reviewed studies in animals are suggesting exposure to PBDEs might be linked to problems with brain development, changes to thyroid systems, and fertility problems. And recently, human studies are coming out and they’re showing some of the same things. Public health experts are especially worried about babies and young kids because they grow so fast… and they are constantly exposed to dust. That’s where PBDEs tend to collect.

The American Chemistry Council did not want to be recorded for this story. But in an email response to my questions, a spokesperson said:

“Flame retardants have been rigorously tested and have saved lives.”

Two of the big chemical companies also responded to me by email. Chemtura and ICL Industrial Products both say they stand by the safety of their flame retardant chemicals.

But many independent scientists and public health experts say it’s a good idea to reduce your exposure to PBDEs.

So all of this made me wonder. How can we know what’s in the stuff we buy? It seems like a simple question. But there are no labels at the store.

You can write to the companies that make your furniture and TV. But I wrote to a half dozen companies to ask them about flame retardants… and only heard back from one, Fisher-Price.

But I have a lot of stuff that’s not made by Fisher-Price. So… I thought I’d call in some experts. The guys at the Ecology Center test consumer products for chemicals. Jeff Gearhart volunteered to come up and test my home to see if we could find flame retardants.

(door opening sound)

“Hey, come on in!” “Hello!”

He brought along a device that looks like a little gun. It can tell you the chemical makeup of products.

“We’re going to look at baby products, toys, furniture, some of your flooring… these chemicals can be transported into your carpet, your child crawls on the carpet, they put their hand in their mouth or there’s just dust in the overall environment. So that’s the mechanism of how we get exposed to these chemicals.”

As Jeff went around my house… he found flame retardants in my TV, the padding under the carpet, three chairs, a car seat, a baby play mat, and our cable box. When PBDEs were phased out of furniture, a lot of companies replaced them with other chemicals.

I wanted to find out more about those chemicals. So I cut samples of foam from some things from my house… and sent them to Heather Stapleton. She’s a chemist at Duke University. The sample I sent her from my baby’s changing table pad totally stumped her.

“I was a little bit surprised honestly because we’ve seen most of the major chemical flame retardants in foam products. This one I’ve never seen before. You mentioned this was made in China. So it could be the Chinese companies are using something different than what we use in the United States.”

She couldn’t tell me whether or not it was safe.

She says it’s next to impossible to know what’s in the things you buy. That’s because the federal government doesn’t require companies to reveal the chemicals in their products… or require proof that the chemicals are safe.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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CO2 Eats at Ocean Creatures

  • Healthy Reef Systems May Be a Thing of The Past(Photo courtesy of Mikael Häggström)

Some scientists think we might be headed for a mass extinction event
in the oceans. When carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere,
a lot of that CO2 soaks into the oceans. That makes the water more
acidic. When the pH gets too low, it dissolves the skeletons of
animals like coral and mussels. Ann Dornfeld reports:

Transcript

** The story as originally broadcast incorrectly referred to the publication as “Natural Geoscience.” It should be “Nature Geoscience.”

Some scientists think we might be headed for a mass extinction event
in the oceans. When carbon dioxide gets released into the atmosphere,
a lot of that CO2 soaks into the oceans. That makes the water more
acidic. It can dissolve the skeletons of
animals like coral and mussels. Ann Dornfeld reports:

Fifty-five million years ago, a mass extinction happened when the
oceans became too acidic.

Richard Feely is a chemical oceanographer for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. He says that today’s ocean acidification
is happening too quickly for many species to adjust.

“Over the last 200 years we’ve seen a 30-percent increase in acidity
of the oceans, and about six percent of that increase of acidity of
the oceans has been in the last 15 years.”

Researchers at the University of Bristol in England ran simulations of
the acidification processes 55 million years ago and today. They found
that acidification is happening ten times faster these days than it
did before the prehistoric mass extinction.

That could mean that if we don’t slow our release of CO2 into the
atmosphere, life in our oceans could crash within a century or two.
The study is published in the journal of Nature Geoscience.

For the Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Chlorine Carted Out of Canada

  • A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

Environmental groups suspect tight
security at the Vancouver Olympics
has shifted an environmental risk
from Canada to the US. Shawn Allee reports:

A Canadian chemical manufacturer shipped rail cars of toxic chlorine away from Vancouver and is storing them in rural Washington State.

The company says it’s part of a long-planned renovation of the chemical plant. Environmental groups suspect the rail shipments were timed to move tanks away from the Olympics.

Fred Millar is watching this development for Friends of the Earth. Millar says terrorists have shown interest in rail cars filled with chlorine gas.

“And that’s what people are mostly worried about because just one chlorine tank car could put out a cloud over any city at a lethal level that’s 15 miles long by 4 miles wide.”

US rail companies make 100,000 shipments of chlorine and similar toxic chemicals per year. Their safety record has largely been good, but accidents have released deadly chlorine gas.

One derailment in South Carolina killed nine people.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Congress Considering Chemical Law

  • There are 80,000 chemicals on the market. But the Environmental Protection Agency has only tested 200 of them for safety to humans - and banned only 5. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Congress might make our federal
chemical laws tougher. Rebecca
Williams has more:

Transcript

Congress might make our federal
chemical laws tougher. Rebecca
Williams has more:

There are 80,000 chemicals on the market. But the Environmental Protection Agency has only tested 200 of them for safety to humans – and banned only 5 of the toxic chemicals.

Senator Frank Lautenberg is a Democrat from New Jersey. During a recent hearing, he said the EPA is doing what it can. But its power is limited by the nation’s outdated chemical laws.

“They cannot protect our children with one hand tied behind their back. That’s why I’ll soon introduce a bill that will overhaul our nation’s chemical laws.”

The bill will likely require companies to prove a chemical is safe before manufacturing it or using it. Right now, it’s up to the government to prove a chemical is harming people or the environment before it’s banned.

Some Conservatives in Congress are opposed to this idea. They say this kind of bill would kill industry innovation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Cleaning Up Dioxin

  • West Michigan Park lies along the Tittabawassee River. Large swaths of its soil was removed and re-sodded due to dioxin contamination. The removal was part of a US EPA effort to have Dow clean up several hot spots in the rivershed. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:

Transcript

One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:

President George W. Bush took it on the chin when it came to the environment. One accusation is that he ignored science that suggested we should get tougher on green house gas emissions.

President Obama’s Administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency is Lisa Jackson. She said things would be different.

“On my first day, I sent a memo to every EPA employee stating that our path would be guided by the best science and by the rule of law, and that every action we took would be subject to unparalleled transparency.”

It hasn’t taken long for the chemical industry to say Obama’s Administration is back-tracking.

“There’s been this notion to get things done, and it get it done fast.”

That’s David Fischer, an attorney for the American Chemistry Council. Fischer’s concerned about new standards on dioxins.

Dioxins are by-products from producing chemicals. They also get into the environment from burning trash and wood.

The government says dioxin causes cancer and reproductive and developmental diseases.

It’s known this for decades, but it’s been finishing a report to show exactly how toxic dioxins are. It’s been writing this dioxin reassessment for 18 years, and it was supposed to put out a draft last week.

But it didn’t do that, and it hasn’t said when it will.

That didn’t stop the EPA from proposing a new rule about how much dioxin should be allowed in the soil in peoples’ yards.

Fischer says that rule should wait.

“If they’re going to base goals based on the best available science, and they have, in fact, stated they plan to, it’s hard to imagine how you can do that before the reassessment’s finished because that does after all represent or should represent the best available science.”

The chemical industry’s concerned because dozens of sites across the country are contaminated with dioxins. And the rule would lower the amount of dioxin allowed in residential soil. It would go from 1000 parts per trillion to 72 parts per trillion – that’s a drop of more than 90%.

Fischer says that could cost companies millions of dollars in extra clean-up costs.

“Again, that begs the question, Why?”

One accusation is that the Obama administration wanted to finalize dioxin soil regulations in time to coincide with controversial, on-going dioxin clean-ups, such as one in central Michigan.

The EPA didn’t answer this question directly and wouldn’t provide an interview in time for this report. But it did say it’s got sound science to justify the proposed dioxin soil rule.

You might ask why this matters. Well, just look at central Michigan, where there’s a large, on-going dioxin cleanup.

Linda Dykema works with Michigan’s Department of Community Health. She creates state standards on how much dioxin should be allowed in water, fish, and soil. To protect people in Michigan, she needs help from the EPA.

“We rely a great deal on federal agencies to provide us with some hazard assessment for chemicals. The ability of the state to public health staff to do those kinds of assessments is pretty limited. They can do what needs to be done and what we can’t do here at the state.”

And a ruling on dioxin levels in soil should help Dykema. But this move by the EPA might cause more problems than it solves. For years, the chemical industry’s argued that the science behind dioxin isn’t complete.

This proposed soil rule gives the chemical industry another chance to say, ‘here we go again.’ And the justification it needs to keep fighting a rule the EPA insists protects people’s health.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

A Tough New Chemical Law

  • Lena Perenius and Franco Bisegna are with CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council in Brussels, Belgium. (Photo by Liam Moriarty)

There are tens of thousands of
chemical compounds on the market
these days. And, for the most part,
unless regulators can prove a chemical
is harmful, it stays there. Now, Europe
has turned that way of doing things
on its head, and the US is showing
signs of moving in that direction, too.
Liam Moriarty has this report:

Transcript

There are tens of thousands of
chemical compounds on the market
these days. And, for the most part,
unless regulators can prove a chemical
is harmful, it stays there. Now, Europe
has turned that way of doing things
on its head, and the US is showing
signs of moving in that direction, too.
Liam Moriarty has this report:

(sounds of a street)

Brussels, Belgium is sort of like the Washington, DC of Europe. It’s here – in the seat of the European Union – that the 27 nations that make up the EU hash out their common policies.

I’m sitting in the office of Bjorn Hansen. He keeps an eye on chemicals for the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment. To give me an idea of how ubiquitous chemicals are in our everyday lives, Hansen points around his office.

“Just us sitting here, you are probably exposed to chemicals, which come from the office furniture, which have been used to color the textile, which has been used to create the foam, the glue under the carpet that we’re sitting – you name it, you’re exposed.”

The big question is whether all this exposure is harming our health or the environment. The answer?

“We, by far, do not know what chemicals are out there, what the effects of those chemicals are, and what the risks associated with those chemicals.”

In the European Union, that uncertainty led to a new law known by its acronym, REACH. That’s R-E-A-C-H. REACH requires that tens of thousands of chemicals used in everyday products in the EU be studied and registered. If a substance cannot be safely used, manufacturers will have to find a substitute, or stop using it. REACH has, at its core, a radical shift: it’s no longer up to the government to prove a chemical is unsafe.

“The burden of proof is on industry to demonstrate safety. And by demonstrating the safety that they think, they also take liability and responsibility for that safety.”

Even for industries accustomed to tougher European regulations, REACH was alarming.

“There were very, quite violent opposition in the beginning.”

Lena Perenius is with CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council.

“In the EU, we already had a very comprehensive set of regulations for ensuring safe use of chemicals. And the industry saw that this was putting an unreasonable burden on the companies.”

Corporations may not have liked it, but the measure had strong public support. After several contentious rounds of negotiations, Perenius says the industry feels it got key concessions that’ll make the far-reaching law workable. Now, she says, the industry has come to see the up-side of REACH.

“Now, when we have the responsibility, that gives us a little bit of freedom to demonstrate, in the way we believe is appropriate, how a substance can be used safely.”

Here in the US, there are signs of political momentum building around taking a more REACH-like approach to regulating the chemicals in everyday products. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg recently said he’d introduce a bill that would shift the burden of proof for safety onto chemical manufacturers.

“Instead of waiting for a chemical to hurt somebody, it will require companies to prove their products are safe before they end up in the store, in our homes, and in our being.”

Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson recently told a Senate committee that – out of an estimated 80,000 chemicals in use – existing law has allowed the EPA to ban only 5, and to study just 200.

“Though many of these chemicals likely pose little or no risk, the story is clear – we’ve only been able to effectively regulate a handful of chemicals, and we know very little about the rest.”

More than a dozen states from Maine to California have already moved to toughen safety standards for chemicals. Even the American Chemistry Council has agreed to support more vigorous regulations to assure consumers that the chemicals in the products they use are safe.

As always, the devil is in the details. But the coming reform is shaping up to look a lot like what Europe is already putting in place.

For The Environment Report, I’m Liam Moriarty.

Related Links

Greening the Golf Course

  • Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons of water a day. (Photo source: Easchiff at Wikimedia Commons)

This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:

Transcript

This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:

Golf courses take knocks for using too many chemicals and too much water. Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons a day.

Gil Rogers is with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He says that’s a boatload of water.

“In Georgia, they’re defined as agriculture – which doesn’t make any sense – but that allows them to use a lot more water than they would otherwise be able to.”

That can be a problem, especially in places with water shortages. Places like Atlanta, where a federal battle over water rights might soon leave the city high and dry.

(sound of rain hitting metal roof)

Of course, on this day, water doesn’t seem like much of a problem. It’s been raining all night. I’ve come to the Stone Mountain Golf Course, just outside Atlanta, to talk to superintendent Anthony Williams. He won golf’s highest environmental stewardship award this year.

(sound of power screwdriver)

Technicians raise the reels on the mowers to help protect the wet turf. Williams says it’s been a tough fall. In October, a big storm – they call it the 500 year storm – dropped 16 inches of rain on Stone Mountain in one day. Williams says the only thing that saved his course were the acres of native plants.

“When that flood – literally – came into the property, those plants did exactly what nature created them to do. They fluffed out. Fanned out and really just acted like a sponge.”

When Williams took over a few years ago he ripped out the non-native ornamentals and replaced them with native perennials that don’t require any additional watering. Just rain.

(sound of rain on roof)

Stone Mountain isn’t just using less water. It’s also using fewer chemicals. Williams’ crew is creative. Take, for instance, one of their big problems: wild geese. They can do a lot of damage to million dollar turf.

“We refer to it as the in-and-out damage. The ‘in damage’ is when they’re actually eating the grass and physically tearing the green up. The ‘out damage’ is as they’re walking, well, (laugh) the eaten grass becomes, well, goose droppings and then the cleanup is very, very difficult.”

Conventional golf courses spray foul-tasting chemicals on the grass or light fireworks overhead to scare the geese. But at Stone Mountain, their secret weapon is a 13 year old hound dog named Cushman. When the geese see Cushman coming, they think he’s a predator. Williams says it works like a charm!

This focus on environmental stewardship is paying off financially. Anthony Williams says they’re using significantly less fertilizer and insecticides. He estimates they’ve saved nearly $50,000 on chemicals in the last two years.

How confident is he about the health of his golf course? I asked him if he was willing to put his course to the test. Apparently, some old-school players still lick their golf balls to clean them. Not a good idea when there’re pesticides on the grounds. Would Williams do it now?

“There’s a lot of things in nature that you probably wouldn’t want to eat or put in your mouth. So the golf ball’s going to encounter a lot of those along the way. I would definitely line up with the ‘do not lick your balls.’ I’m gonna be on that side of the fence.”

More golf courses are starting to look at their environmental impact for the first time. They’re planting different grasses.

And nearly 1,000 US golf courses use recycled or reclaimed water. Another reason not to lick your balls.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tanya Ott.

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Sewage Treatment Missing the Mark?

  • Some people say wastewater treatment plants might not be doing a good job taking out pollutants like household chemicals and pharmaceuticals. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)

A new study is looking at just
how well wastewater treatment
plants remove household chemicals
and pharmaceuticals from water.
Samara Freemark reports
on why some researchers are worried
that the plants aren’t doing a good
enough job:

Transcript

A new study is looking at just
how well wastewater treatment
plants remove household chemicals
and pharmaceuticals from water.
Samara Freemark reports
on why some researchers are worried
that the plants aren’t doing a good
enough job:

Most wastewater treatment plants clean water with a mix of chemicals and bacteria. But that process is decades-old. And it was designed mostly to deal with industrial pollutants.

Some people say treatment plants might not be doing a good job taking out other pollutants like household chemicals and pharmaceuticals. In fact, the treatment process can actually cause many of these pollutants to mutate – for example, some detergents break down into compounds that cause reproductive problems.

Anthony Hay is studying the issue at Cornell University.

“Hopefully they’re degraded into something non-toxic, but in some cases microbial degradation of some pollutants can actually make things worse. We need to understand what those changed products do, how they behave, and what risks they might pose.”

That’s what Hay hopes his study will help clarify.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Waiting for the FDA to Rule on BPA

  • The chemical Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is found in some plastic food packaging and the inside of most tin-cans. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

The government missed a deadline to
declare whether a chemical in food
packaging is safe. Shawn Allee reports critics are growing
tired of the delay:

Transcript

The government missed a deadline to
declare whether a chemical in food
packaging is safe. Shawn Allee reports critics are growing
tired of the delay:

The chemical is Bisphenol-A, or BPA. It’s found in some plastic food packaging and the inside of most tin-cans.

The US Food and Drug Administration is reviewing whether BPA causes developmental diseases and some cancers. The agency missed a deadline of November 30th, and some groups are getting impatient.

Sarah Jennsen is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says while the Food and Drug Administration deliberates, more studies are coming out against BPA.

“We’ve had studies now published that show toddlers exposed to BPA behave diffrently from toddlers who are not exposed, and so this human research which is being published is very concerning because it’s replicating what we’ve already seen in the animal studies.

The Food and Drug Administration won’t say which studies it’s including in its scientific review of BPA or when it will finish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Veterans’ Benefits for Agent Orange Exposure

  • A poster from the Department of Veterans Affairs offering help and resources to veterans exposed to Agent Orange. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs)

The US Department of Veterans
Affairs is offering new help to
Vietnam-era vets. The VA says
it can now assist vets who have
ailments related to Agent Orange
exposure. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

The US Department of Veterans
Affairs is offering new help to
Vietnam-era vets. The VA says
it can now assist vets who have
ailments related to Agent Orange
exposure. Mark Brush has more:

During the Vietnam War, the herbicide known as Agent Orange was sprayed over jungles and forests. It was used to strip the leaves from the trees and expose enemy soldiers.

Some US soldiers who were exposed to the herbicide have long complained about health problems.

Now, the Department of Veterans Affairs says it will help these veterans with disability benefits.

Exposure to Agent Orange has been tied to health problems like parkinson’s disease, cancer, and heart problems.

Allan Oates is with the US Military Veterans with Parkinson’s. He served in Vietnam. And was exposed to Agent Orange. He says his group was thrilled by the VA’s decision.

“It was just an exhilarating feeling to have these people knowing that they were going to get the help that they deserved.”

Oates says many Vietnam era veterans don’t know yet that help is available to them.

The VA estimates that 2.6 million military personnel were potentially exposed to sprayed Agent Orange.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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