Washington Bans Chemicals; Industry Freaks

Frosty Piss writes "The governor of Washington is scheduled to sign legislation today to ban flame retardants called PBDEs in furniture, televisions, and computers in the state. This is despite the more than $220,000 the chemical industry has spent since 2005 to defeat the legislation. At a time when the federal government is largely ineffectual in regulating long-used but potentially dangerous industrial chemicals, the Washington ban could be the beginning of the end for PBDEs across the nation. 'The industry that makes deca and PBDEs is freaking out because they lost so severely in Washington state and other states will follow,' said a spokeswoman for the Washington Toxics Coalition. 'It really is a message from Washington state and policymakers that we won't accept chemicals that build up in our bodies and our children.'"

Comments

Washington State, Don't come crying back....

[dfenstrate]

...When you can't buy anything flame resistant or UL listed. Or anything, for that matter. Is Washington a big enough state to overcome the costs associated with a differentiated product line? Will companies even make things that can't cost-effectively comply with other regulations and industry liability practices that require flame resistance?

I'm not sure but I guess we'll find out.

Re:Washington State, Don't come crying back....

[SuperBanana]

Is Washington a big enough state to overcome the costs associated with a differentiated product line?

If you read the article- there are alternatives to the banned chemicals. In fact, the same companies that make the banned chemicals make the alternatives.

The wonderful thing about capitalism is that it is remarkably adaptive. Even if Washington State isn't very large, they still represent a lot of buying power. I once read that my local town's residents have the buying power in the hundreds of millions of dollars...

Let's also not forget that "making things easy for corporations" (which pay single-digit percentages of taxes, when in the 50's they paid about half) should be the absolute least of our priorities, especially when it comes to matters of public health.

Watch the Bill Moyer special sometime about pollution- give a sample of your blood to someone with an analytical lab, and they'll be able to find hundreds, if not thousands, of industrial chemicals. They've become completely pervasive.

Re:Washington State, Don't come crying back....

[squiggleslash]

Here's how it works.

You're the CEO Megacorp 1. You produce SuperDooperFunTechs, a brand of computer, containing CAnCeR2 toxic waste as a flame retardant.

A state, say, one that contains the world's largest computer software company, bans CAnCeR2.

You, being a CEO, naturally hear about this on Slashdot. Naturally, your first reaction is to have a hissy fit. You then read the suggestions by dslashbot (202099) advising you to "stick it to the man" and simply refuse to sell your wares in said state.

"Har har" says you. "That'll learn 'em".

At which point the CEO of Megacorp 2, who produces SuperDooperFunTech's main rival, PowerMegaSeriousTech, says "Wow, Megacorp 1 is withdrawing from that state? Why? Because there's a ban on CAnCeR2? Hmmm, do we have CAnCeR2 in our PowerMegaSeriousTech?"

A flunky then says "Why, yes your seriousness, but wait. There's a whole host of flame retardants that are not banned, we just use CAnCeR2 because it's cheap. Remember that memo? Save every penny? If we switched to GRe3N, the lowest cost alternative, we'd have to add $2 to the price of our PowerMegaSeriousTechs. Call it $3 if you take into account that we would probably only want to do that for the state in question."

"Ha ha!" says CEO of Megacorp 2. "Profits!".

And so the story has a happy ending. Megacorp 2 sells safe, toxic waste free, PowerMegaSeriousTechs to our environmentally conscious state. The state's happy citizens have their PowerMegaSeriousTechs, they're $3 more expensive than they are in the neighbouring states, but that's ok. The CEO of Megacorp 1 is fired for being so shortsighted as to seriously believe that the choice is always between affordable fire retardants and being sued for numerous fires. Meanwhile, as more and more states ban CAnCeR2, the costs of alternatives plummet as chemical companies the world over realize there's money to be made in non-toxic flame retardants, and CAnCeR2 is a dead-end.

yes, it's in the food chain

[circletimessquare]

naturally:

Surprisingly, an experiment done the at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts in 2005 showed that the isotopic signature of PBDEs found in whale blubber contained carbon-14, the naturally occurring radioactive isotope of carbon. If the PBDEs in the whale had come from artificial (human-made) sources, they would have only contained carbon-12 and no carbon-14 due to the fact that virtually all PBDEs which are produced artificially use petroleum as the source of carbon, all carbon-14 would have long since completely decayed from that source.[2] The experiment thus shows that there must be some as yet unidentified natural source of PBDEs. However this source is extremely unlikely to account for the concentrations of PBDEs measured in human tissues, wildlife, household dust and common foods.

Re:It only takes a spark

[polar red]

yup, It's a story like the one about Asbestos and DDT. In the EU, there is even legistlation that goes (a lot) further, called REACH. People should be reminded that any chemical, that is not bio-degradeable, ends up on our plate and accumulates in the whole eco-system.

Abuse of states' rights?

[smellsofbikes]

I'm big on states' rights over federal ones, and local laws over state ones, on the assumption that the closer to home, the better the legislators will deal with what's actually going on. (Also lobbies find it much harder to affect vast numbers of low-level officials, even though you can buy them off with (1) hooker and (1) thimbleful of blow, rather than having to give them a whole sorority for a weekend -- coz there are just so many low-level officials compared to senators.)

But I have to wonder, at the same time, at what point legislation stops being about good-for-the-people, or even look-I'm-doing-something-vote-for me, and starts being about legislating morals, ethics, and such. One part of me wishes more states would make like California and start making effective carbon-emission-reduction laws, or Washington, making effective anti-dangerous-chemical laws, but how long before Tennessee bans birth control pills as suspect carcinogens, or any of a variety of other handwaving subterfuges that are intended not to make people safer but to force them towards different behavior? Maybe states' rights isn't such a hot idea after all.

Re:And in other news...

[drinkypoo]

Seriously, they need to think these things throught just a wee bit more - Whether requiring a given level of flame-resistance and then bitching about the toxicity of most flame retardants, or banning leaded gasoline in the '70s, only to replace it with MTBE that behaves exactly like lead in the environment.

And now we're replacing it with ethanol, which doesn't.

MTBE is still better than lead, because lead never breaks down, being elemental. But don't let the facts get in your way.

Requiring a given level of flame resistance is not unreasonable, nor is refusing to use chemicals which are somehow ending up in the food chain. That may mean they end up sitting on a bunch of unpadded metal furniture or something. I don't particularly care.

Sometimes "bad" still counts as the lesser of two evils.

Seldom are there ever only two choices.

You're acting like this is the only fire retardant available, or that there aren't ways to reduce flammability that don't involve spraying toxics on your products or otherwise making them unsafe.

Re:Another step towards a States Rights battle?

[Qzukk]

Will Bush and party push for federal legislation limiting state's rights to enforce stricter than federal laws?

Bush wouldn't be the first. For whatever reason, the Clean Air Act states that nobody can set stricter standards for vehicle emissions than the federal government unless California does, and then those states have to use standards identical to California for a given model year (or back down to the federal requirements).

Re:It only takes a spark

[Volante3192]

Well, that's 6 figures divvied up between all the congressmen they went after.

6 figures to *each* congressman might work.

Chemicals are the new Evil Spirits

[Kohath]

Long ago, when bad things happened for reasons no one understood, the people of that time blamed "evil spirits" or "the devil" or witches or sorcerers. Folks were afraid. You can still see this occur in primitive societies. Someone will get sick or the weather will be bad or the cows will die and it'll be blamed on evil sorcerers. Sometimes, someone is accused and killed for doing their evil magic -- often a personal enemy or rival or someone envied.

Some modern folks don't believe in magic, but bad things still happen that they don't understand. People still get sick unpredictably. Now it gets blamed on "chemicals". People are afraid. Sometimes someone will be accused and harmed financially (but not killed) for using these "chemicals" -- often a political enemy or rival or someone envied.

Rather than asking for their god (or God) to protect them from evil, they ask their government. Rather than asking for a blessing before they eat their meals, they buy government-blessed "organic" foods. Like their ancestors, they fear becoming "polluted" by something bad.

.

Fear, ignorance, and a lack of understanding shouldn't be the basis for decisions. The government makes a poor god and is unworthy or your faith.

Try being responsible for yourself. Instead of reacting, think. Instead of fearing, learn. Instead or harming or forcing (or killing), choose.

Re:The fear born of ignorance is at work

[Anonymous Coward]

*shrug*

Or maybe manufacturers should get off their asses, stop buying everything from Dow chemical, and switch to purchasing cost-competitive, biodegradable fire retardants that vastly exceed the performance of existing chemicals on the market.

Competing products are out there. We make one that blows the doors off any other fire retardant, performance-wise, and is eco-friendly to boot. So why are we having difficulty getting into the market? Because without legislation than bans nasty brominated materials major manufacturers see no reason to upset their supply chains.

You can bet your ass my company is drooling all over this, and we'll be pushing hard on distributors in Washington state.

Heck, if anyone out there is interested in using our products, leave a reply to this post with contact info and I'll get someone to get into contact with you.

Here comes the science

[nFriedly]

In case you were wondering what a PBDE was, heres the intro from the wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBDE

PBDE From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PBDE, or polybrominated diphenyl ether, is a flame-retardant sub-family of the brominated flame-retardant group. They have been used in a wide array of household products, including fabrics, furniture, and electronics. There are three main types, referred to as penta, octa and deca for the number of bromine atoms in the molecule. After studies in Sweden found substances related to PentaBDE accumulating in breast milk and other tissues, Sweden reduced the use of this substance. A follow-up study has in the meantime indicated declining levels.[1]

The European Union has carried out a comprehensive risk assessment under the Existing Substances Regulation 793/93/EEC of Penta-, Octa- and DecaBDE. As a consequence the EU has banned the use of Penta-and OctaBDE since 2004. Deca-BDE use has been exempted under the European Union's RoHS Directive since 15 October 2005 following the positive outcome of a EU scientific assessment.

Surprisingly, an experiment done the at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts in 2005 showed that the isotopic signature of PBDEs found in whale blubber contained carbon-14, the naturally occurring radioactive isotope of carbon. If the PBDEs in the whale had come from artificial (human-made) sources, they would have only contained carbon-12 and no carbon-14 due to the fact that virtually all PBDEs which are produced artificially use petroleum as the source of carbon, all carbon-14 would have long since completely decayed from that source.[2] The experiment thus shows that there must be some as yet unidentified natural source of PBDEs. However this source is extremely unlikely to account for the concentrations of PBDEs measured in human tissues, wildlife, household dust and common foods.

Re:The fear born of ignorance is at work

[Goldsmith]

What about purified silicon? Glass? Drywall? Aluminum, or any pure metal?

I'm a huge fan of not slowly poisoning ourselves, but I think your criteria of using only biodegradable materials is unreasonable. There are ways of neutralizing chemicals outside of biology.

Then what about naturally occurring chemicals? PDBEs are found in nature (with carbon isotopes not found in synthetic chemicals).

While I agree that PDBEs should be replaced with currently available chemicals that are biodegradable, we don't know everything. We don't know where naturally occurring PDBEs come from or where they go. Technically, there may be some bacteria out there capable of degrading PDBEs, but we still shouldn't be using them.

It's enough to say that we shouldn't use dangerous chemicals unless we have to.

Re:It only takes a spark

[pclminion]

My interpretation: Congressmen need more than 6 figures to be bought off.

My interpretation: The companies in question didn't think the issue was important enough to be worth more than a few hundred grand.