Health & Environment

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How dust bunnies can make you sick, by Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato

Introduction

Flame retardant chemicals are added to many different consumer products and are associated with a variety of serious health concerns, including disruption of hormones, developmental and reproductive problems. These chemicals do not stay in products- they are found in the blood, fat and breast milk of nearly all people tested, as well being ubiquitous in wildlife and the environment worldwide.

How are we exposed to flame retardant chemicals?

Flame retardant chemicals and health

The highest levels of PBDE flame retardants are found in Californians and their house dust, due to the 1975 TB117 furniture flammability standard.

Amount of PBDE flame retardant in house dust from various locations (data from Zota 2008).

Research also shows higher levels of flame retardants in vulnerable populations including children, people of color and in low-income households. Learn more about flame retardants as an environmental justice issue on our blog.

Our interdisciplinary peer-reviewed paper examines the major uses and known toxic effects of commonly-used halogenated flame retardants and their by-products. We found that commonly used flame retardants:

What are the health concerns associated with flame retardants?

Are associated with endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, cancer, and adverse effects on fetal and child development and neurologic function
Enter the environment through multiple pathways and are global contaminants
Are persistent in the environment and do not break down into safer chemicals
Tend to bioaccumulate, or build up in people and animals
Make disposal or recycling of products to which they are added more difficult
Create toxic, carcinogenic byproducts if burned, which may be associated with higher rates of cancer in firefighters

Flame retardant chemicals and the environment

Many halogenated flame retardants are structurally related to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and are also environmentally persistent and bioaccumulative. Because of their persistence, halogenated flame retardants have become distributed around the globe and are found at remote places where they have never been used. Furthermore, even if they are banned and no longer manufactured, chemicals already released to the environment continue to persist and spread. Though a majority of PBDEs were manufactured and used in North America, a 2013 study found PBDEs in tree bark at far-flung locations in Nepal and Tasmania, almost 10 years after their phase-out.

Size of circle is proportionate to the concentration of total PBDEs (ng/ g of lipid weight) found in tree bark at the indicated location (from data in Salamova 2013).

“Halogenated flame retardants possess many of the same chemical properties as PCBs. We can learn from the PCB experience that once released into the environment, halogenated flame retardants will present very challenging and expensive cleanup measures.”
–Dick Luthy, Chair, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University

Halogenated flame retardants build up in wildlife and are found throughout freshwater, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems globally, with the highest levels in top of the food chain predators like birds of prey and marine mammals. Studies find that flame retardant levels are associated with altered behaviors and decreased reproductive success in some species.