A study of gull eggs shows that more chemicals used as flame retardants are
showing up in the environment. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
A study of gull eggs shows that more chemicals used as flame retardants are
showing up in the environment. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Flame retardants on clothes and other products have reduced deaths and
injuries caused by fires. But the compound traditionally found in retardants,
polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDE, has found its way into many water
bodies and even into women’s breast milk.
A few years ago, after concerns about the compound being linked to health
problems in wildlife, makers of PBDEs began to phase out some types of it. A
recent update of a study of herring gull eggs around the Great Lakes has found
that levels of the phased out chemicals have been dropping, but research
scientist Robert Letcher of Environment Canada says there’s also bad news:
“Flame retardants that are replacing them commercially are starting to show up in
the gulls as an indicator species. And for example, there’s the replacement flame
retardant callled deca-BDE. That’s what we’re seeing going up.”
Letcher says there could be long-term health concerns for both wildlife and
humans.
For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.