Over the past few weeks, our class has been learning about toxins. Lately, we have been focusing on polybrominated diphenyl ether or PBDEs for short. We were given the task of searching for them in our homes/dorms and in an assigned building around campus. We were giving a set of questions to answer and charts to fill in, here are my results.
A) I managed to find only one product with a tag that said that it met flammability requirements in California and that was the black chairs on the third floor of the Learning Center. So the room where I found the most flame retardants was Learning Skills.
( Pictures were taken by Chloe Methven)
B) So the most abundant product with flame retardants that I found was furniture.
C) Out of the products on my charts, I think that my pillow gets the most use from me but the red chairs in the library have the most traffic by many different people.
(Pictures taken by Chloe Methven)
D) If my pillow had flame retardants that would the riskiest because my face would be one it and I could also be breathing it in every night. The black chairs, however, have the real risk because they have the actual flame retardants in them. Some people sit on them every day waiting for their class. They are only sitting for short periods of time but they are still coming in contact. My fleece has the lowest risk, it has no flame retardants and even if it did I rarely wear it.
E) If you are concerned about exposure to PBDEs I would suggest looking at labels on anything you want to buy and go through your home and check everything for PBDE.
F) My main concern with PBDEs is that companies are using new ones without testing them and we have no idea what the effects are. Before learning this lesson I had no idea the number of chemicals in our daily lives. Constantly in the class, I am learning things that make it hard to trust companies to do the right thing. Before I was just blindly trusting that whatever I bought was not dangerous. I did not know that I was blindly trusting, I was blind to my blind trust… So far my solution of not seeing the world as bad is to learn as much as I can and find ways that I can make it better.
