http://www.ceh.org/news-events/blog/choosing-a-chemical-flame-retardant-free-campus/

November 4, 2015

Choosing a Chemical Flame-Retardant Free Campus
By Joe Allen PhD and Heather Henriksen MPA



By Heather Henriksen, Director, Harvard Office for Sustainability and Joe Allen, Assistant Professor of Exposure Assessment Science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment

Today, Harvard becomes the first university in the nation to sign a pledge stating our preference for purchasing furniture that is manufactured without the use of toxic chemical flame retardants. We’re honored to join industry leaders like Kaiser Permanente, Facebook, and Autodesk in acting on what the science tells us is a necessary step forward for the health and well-being of our community. The path that took us to this moment reflects what we believe should be a central responsibility of any university: producing research that is relevant to people’s lives and that can be easily translated into practice on our campus and elsewhere.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency there are over 80,000 chemicals in use today, most are unregulated, and only some have undergone sufficient health testing. At Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and other Harvard Schools, including engineering and design, our researchers are working to better understand how exposure to harmful chemicals can impact human health and the environment. And through the University’s holistic Sustainability Plan and Green Building Standards, Harvard is identifying and tracking chemicals of concern in our built environment.

When public health scientists conduct their research, they think about sources (where pollutants come from and how they migrate into our environments), exposure pathways (determining how chemicals enter our bodies), and adverse health effects (how those exposures impact human health). And on flame retardant chemicals this entire pathway has been worked out thanks to research at Harvard and countless other universities, government agencies and non-profit institutions. The science is clear: halogenated and organophosphorous flame retardants have been widely used in upholstered furniture and other products for several decades; these chemical flame retardants migrate out of products and enter the air and dust in our indoor and outdoor environments, causing near ubiquitous exposure; and exposure to these chemicals is associated with adverse health effects including cancer, interference with the hormone system, impairments to neurological development, and reproductive harm.

Eliminating the use of these chemicals does not weaken fire safety. The Consumer Product Safety Commission found these harmful chemicals do not provide a “practically significant greater level” of safety than untreated furniture. And furniture containing some flame retardants actually emits higher levels of carbon monoxide, soot and smoke than untreated furniture. New fire safety standards that improve safety while allowing manufacturers to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in upholstered furniture allows Harvard, and other organizations, to make good purchasing decisions aligned with what the science tells us is necessary for public health.

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