Toxicity of our City

The Toxicity of our City

"You know, its hard to know what happens to a life, or my life, if you change a central event." 
Andrew McGuire(Screen Shot from Toxic Hot Seat)

Andrew McGuire is a fire safety enthusiast. He was covered in third degree burns on his back, legs, and head as a child, due to a cooking accident when he was only eight years old. Ever since that incident his life has been focused on reducing fire danger for everyone. 

In the 1970s fire danger was becoming a severe problem here in the United States. There was about 2900 deaths every year from house fires. Back then almost everyone smoked cigarettes, and they were a leading cause of furniture related fires. The obvious solution was to change the cigarette, to make it self extinguishing. But even though they could manufacture this kind of cigarette, the cigarette companies refused. "They don't want their product associated with [fire] incidents." (Andrew McGuire). The cigarette industry instead put all the blame onto the furniture company, repeatedly throwing them under the bus in the court and in the media. "Everyone believes that you cannot take on the tobacco industry, its to big, its too powerful, and probably thats the single leading cause of nothing happening. That people think it isn't possible." McGuire said in an interview in the 80s, describing the struggle he and other fire safety enthusiasts were having against the tobacco industry. Andrew McGuire went on to win a MacAurthur award for his efforts to help the United States pass-fire safe cigarette legislation. Yet in 1975, in California, they had already come up with a different solution, and it was called Technical Bulletin 117: "...all upholstered furniture manufactured for sale for use in this state... Shall be fire retardant..."

No other state or even country had any standard for fire retardants in upholstered furniture. "Because California's market is so huge, its in all your furniture, throughout the country" (McGuire). They began to put fire retardants in everything, just because of California's Regulation. "Nobody knew about it except for the furniture company" (McGuire) The picture on the right is a picture of a flame retardant notice that you can find on nearly any upholstered furniture, even today (Found on google images). 

Many studies later came out in the 1980s with test results, showing how quickly many of these flame retardants can get into our bloodstream, and that they are, in fact, very toxic. In one study, a little girl's urine was tested 1 day after wearing pajamas treated with brominated Tris (a flame retardant), and the chemical was found in her urine sample. The scariest part about this study is that the chemical happens to be a carcinogen, or a cancer causing chemical. With the release of this study, Tris was banned from children's' clothing. However, brominated Tris is still the most popular flame retardant, and can still be found in almost any furniture, and even in baby products. 

Thankfully, We have found other ways to reduce the amount of fires in the United States. Including laws regarding sprinkler systems and fire alarms in nearly all new buildings. Also, cigarettes finally were made to be self extinguishing. "There are ways to mandate that the fabric meet a certain weave and thickness standard, with no chemicals added, that makes it fire resistant." (McGuire). There are ways that the furniture companies can make furniture now so that it is fire resistant naturally, with no toxic chemicals added. Yet still California required flame retardants in all furniture manufacturing. And because of the persistence and bioaccumulation ability of the chemicals, people all over the country were finding toxic flame retardant chemicals in their bodies. It was very hard to propose a successful bill to remove flame retardants from fabrics, simply because the flame retardant industry was able to release hundreds of media adds bashing the bill, stating that it would cause hundreds of fires, stating things such as: the average furniture in our homes without fire retardants will cause severe house fires. "Either you have people behind you, or money behind you, and we don't have the money" McGuire describes his fight against the Technical Bulletin 117. Thankfully the main legislature had enough people to back up their bill, and toxic flame retardants were banned in the state. It did not pan out that way in California, however. In 2008 Mark Leno, a California state senator, proposed Assembly Bill 706, to ban brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, which failed miserably against the opposing chemical industry. In 2010 Leno proposed another bill, Senate Bill 772, to exempt some children's products from TB117, so that they wouldn't have to be made with the chemicals. They were defeated once again by the chemical industry. Leno proposed another bill in 2010, Senate bill 1291 to reevaluate flammability standard, and he failed again to the Chemical industry. Countless bills were trumped by the money that backs up such industries as the chemical industry. "Theres gotta be national media coverage over and over to educate the public" McGuire states, describing the struggle of lobbying against the chemical industry without money to back them up. Finally, due to repetitive journalism coverage on the toxicity of flame retardants, the Governor of California at the time, Governor Brown, released a letter directing state agencies to revise flammability standards. Eventually through a public hearing there was a majority vote to regulate the chemicals released by the chemical industry, and that all synthetic chemicals should be tested for safety before they are released into the public, and from that point forward the flame retardant production companies folded, one by one, giving into the legislatures votes to revise the Technical Bulletin 117 regulation. 

To me it seems crazy that there could ever be such potential harmful chemicals released into the environment with no regulation. Yet that is what it was. There was no checks on the chemical industry. Thousands of chemicals were being released every year, and they would accumulate and spread in the environment to the point where synthetic chemicals can be found in polar bears across the globe from where these chemicals were being produced. Andrew McGuire states his support for "sane chemical regulations" at the end of Toxic Hot Seat. I believe that this notion cannot be stressed enough to not only US legislature, but to any country's leaders and lawmakers. It is not fair to anyone to have these toxic chemicals released into the environment, because these chemicals cannot be taken back, and they will persist in nature probably longer than humanity will even survive. It is not even fair to the earth, to pollute it so boldly, and without immediate consequence. This is why I agree with McGuire, who is still wary of chemicals even after their success in California, and urges everyone to also be wary of the many chemicals that make our lives toxic.