Are we starting a fire with fire retardants

The movie, Toxic Hot Seat has begun to churn thoughts in my head about what could be harmful to me in the everyday items that I use and what the consequences could be, both short and long term. By     sampling item in my house (mostly furniture), I could determine time exposed to the fire retardant and the health and age risks for me and my family members.

While looking through my house the room I had found myself spending the most time in flipping over cushions and chairs where in the den and the living room. With two couches in each, one recliner, and a desk chair these two rooms are littered with health risks from the fire retardants used in the process of making these items.

The notice for my couch at home

The couch its self

By far the most abundant product were the chairs in the dining room. All with the tag approved with the TB117 stamped on it.

Dining room chair

Dining room chair tag

When I think about the items that are uses most often in my daily life at home I thought the couch, because while searching my mattress for tags I could not find any. After discussing with Alan, I determined that my most used and most impactful item to my health was my mattress.

The product with the highest health risk would be the most used, which to me would be my mattress as I discussed above, and the product with the lowest health risk would be the dinning room chairs. The chairs that are in my dining room are rarely used and the size of the foam that is on the chair is very small compared to a couch or a love seat.

Today during class we were sampling the wise center for furniture with the TB117. Out of the 28 chairs and couches we sampled, 23 of them were CLEARLY LABLED with the TB117. Below is what we found for the varieties of furniture. *Remember these products are used daily.*

Wise center couch with TB117 tag

Wise center chair with TB117 tag

So let's make a stand to ban. (TB117 that is) why don't we just get rid of it all together? It's proven harmful so why do we still feel the need to produce it. We shouldn't. As bad and gruesome as this may sound, I believe in my imagination, burning is a faster way of death than a long painful battle with cancer.

We need to stop this and prevent these lethal toxins from entering our bodies. 

Lets make a change, it doesn't start without your help.

All image taken by Eric Bonewald