8 Oct 2013
Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a law that may lead to a change in state building standards that would discourage the use of potentially hazardous flame-retardant chemicals. Because of laws passed in the 1970s, the walls of many homes and workplaces built since then contain foam insulation doused with flame retardants.…
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26 Jun 2013
Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown directed state agencies to reduce water use and greenhouse gas emissions through a green building action plan to “shrink the state’s environmental footprint.” The order also mandated using “environmentally preferable products that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing goods that serve the same purpose.”…
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27 May 2013
Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner of Berkeley is calling for a change in the state’s building code that would lessen the need for toxic chemicals in insulation. Julie Watts reports…
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5 Feb 2013
Tony Stefani used to be a firefighter and a cancer patient. The two, he believes, had something to do with each other.…
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4 Feb 2013
Couches throughout the nation have become notorious for containing flame-retardant chemicals that may do more harm than good. Now, it turns out, those chemicals may also be leaching from the walls that surround you.…
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28 Nov 2012
Speaking before a roomful of breast cancer researchers and activists in San Francisco earlier this month, Arlene Blum revealed her latest plan to get toxic chemicals out of our homes. “We want to change the international building code,” she said, “so you can have more fire safety in buildings without flame retardants.”…
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28 Nov 2012
Newer homes are remarkably energy tight thanks to superior insulating materials that are in wide circulation today. The energy savings can be substantial – homeowners can use up to 60% less energy in the most efficient green homes. Now, a study published by a team of researchers in Building Research & Information makes it clear that the very materials that provide us with such energy efficiency are pumped full of harmful flame retardant chemicals.…
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25 Nov 2012
Researchers in the United States are calling for a change to the US building codes, following a study showing that the mandatory flame retardants routinely added to foam insulation are not only harmful to human health and the environment, but also make no difference to the prevention of fire in buildings where a fire-safe thermal barrier already exists. Such a change would bring the US building codes in line with regulations in Sweden and Norway…
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