Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture
There is no need to choose between fire safety and preventing exposure to hazardous flame retardants.
A safe fire safety is possible
About us
1) The Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture gathers industry representatives, NGOs, health organisations and trade unions that share a common concern towards the use of unwanted flame retardants in furniture. The Alliance calls on the EU institutions and Member States to adopt a similar approach towards harmonising existing flammability standards and requirements across Europe, using smoulder ignition tests (such as cigarette test EN 1021/1) instead of open flame tests as a basis to prove compliance, whenever flammability requirements are already in place at national level
3) Many flame retardants have been documented to be harmful for humans (consumers and workers), animals and the environment. Toxic flame retardants are also hampering a true circular economy, posing a problem at the end-of-life of products.
2) Many outdated fire safety requirements exist in the EU Member States/European countries for furniture, as part of more general product safety efforts and there is no harmonisation of flammability standards at EU level.
Currently, for domestic furniture, compliance with open flame tests is required in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other European countries require compliance with the cigarette test (EN 1021/1) and others do not have requirements in place at all.
A harmonisation of flammability standards and requirements is needed at European level to avoid compliance with open flame tests, but rather with smoulder tests (compliance can be met without the use of flame retardants), whenever flammability requirements are already in place at national level.
4) This Alliance wants to ensure that legislation and requirements in all markets balance three aspects: Fire Safety, Chemical Safety and Circularity.
5) US as example and not UK and Ireland for domestic furniture
IS YOUR SOFA TREATED WITH TOXIC CHEMICALS?
They build up in our bodies, and are linked to cancer, hormonal disruption, decreased fertility, neurological impairments, lower birth weight and a range of other health and developmental problems.
Many scientific studies show that flame retardant chemicals pollute the environment and contaminate the food chain. Evidence of any meaningful improvement in fire safety from the use of flame retardants in furniture is lacking, while they can increase smoke toxicity.
Is the risk worth it?
THE TRUTH ABOUT FLAME RETARDANTS
Flame retardants are found in a variety of household products despite evidence they put people’s health at risk.
THE SOLUTION
ENSURING SAFE FURNITURE WITHOUT FLAME RETARDANTS
The Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture is calling on the European Commission and the EU Member States to harmonise furniture flammability requirements at a level that would not lead to flame retardants use, considering health and environmental risks.
The Alliance for Flame Retardant Free Furniture proposes an EU approach using smoulder ignition tests instead of open flame tests.
Jamie Page, The Cancer Prevention & Education Society
Linked to a number of disorders
“Flame retardant chemicals are linked to a number of disorders, including fertility problems, brain development disorders, neurotoxicity, thyroid effects and cancer.
Many of them are endocrine-disrupting chemicals, interfering with hormone signalling in the body and can therefore affect health in many ways. Long term exposure occurring in homes and offices poses uncontrolled and involuntary risks.”
Michael Warhurst, ChemTrust
Found in dust
“We spend up to 90% of our time indoors – in our homes, our offices or at school.
However, studies show that indoor environment can be more polluted and therefore worse for our health than air outdoors.
Worrying harmful chemical pollutants such as flame retardants have been routinely found in dust.
Children, particularly babies and toddlers playing on floors, are specifically vulnerable to ingesting these pollutants through breathing in or eating dust”.
Joan Marc Simon, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE)
Toxins in, toxins out
“We have already seen kitchen utensil and plastics cutlery with hazardous flame retardants.
As long as toxic chemicals enter the cycle, they might end up recycled into new products. Toxins in, toxins out.”
Tatiana Santos, The European Environmental Bureau (EEB)
Ending up on our plates
“Flame retardant chemicals leak out of products and build up in the environment. They create a toxic legacy that does not disappear over time, but stays in the air, soil and sediments of the oceans – eventually ending up in the food we eat.”
Markus Wiesner, The European Furniture Industries Confederation (EFIC)
Industry concerns
“Too many risks are linked to consumer’s exposure to flame retardants and it is now clear that the current situation is a loss for everybody. We need a real discussion on the consequences of using flame retardant chemicals in furniture, and a clear answer to how fire safety can be achieved in more effective and less harmful ways”.
French Agency for FoodEnvironmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES, 2015)
Uncertain effectiveness
“Concerning assessment of a possible decrease in the risk of fires associated with use of flame retardants, available data do not make it possible to conclude that flame retardants in upholstered furniture for domestic use are effective”.
San Antonio Statement, more than 200 worldwide experts
Toxins Fire toxicity“Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants can increase fire toxicity, but their overall benefit in improving fire safety has not been proven.”
