News-Record.com

PBDE is the acronym for Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a category of flame retardant used in a whole bunch of stuff, including the computer I'm using to enter this blog post and the couch I'm sitting on right at the moment.

According to researchers, it's also found in household dust, drier lint, human hands and accumulates in fish and humans. Oh, and it has apparently been linked to thyroid issues and may affect neurological development.

I have a story coming for Sunday's paper about some Greensboro-are legislators - Rep. Pricey Harrison Sen. Stan Bingham and Sen. Katie Dorsett - who plan to offer some legislation to ban it's use in North Carolina.

Click here to read the newspaper story.

Wikipedia has a pretty good primer of PBDEs, although it's fairly technical stuff so source elsewhere as well.

A few more things: There are three main varieties of PBDEs, all named for their chemical makeup. The penta and octa varieties are no longer manufactured in the United State, but the deca variety is. The problem with deca is that it can be broken down by sunlight and the metabolism of certain critters (definitely fish, maybe humans, possibly bacteria) into its more toxic cousins.

Washington and Maine have passed laws restricting the use of the deca form of PBDE.

If North Carolina is going to pass a ban, or anything approaching it, the legislation will have to proposed by the ERC, one of the myriad of committees that meets during the interim between legislative session. The rules that govern the legislative short session that begins in May don't allow legislators to introduce bills willy nilly like they can at the start of long sessions, which start in odd number years.

Harrison said that her impression is that the ERC is leaning toward doing so, although they have yet to hear from folks like the manufacturers of PBDEs, which is supposed to happen in March.

Some companies such as Dell have announced they are phasing out use of the chemical. But given the fights that went down in Maine and Washington, I'd expect some pushback here as well.

One more bit of oddness connected to this. The furniture industry, tobacco industry, chemical industry and a whole bunch of government regulators have been fighting over flammability standards for years. The debate initially had to do with whether it makes more sense to make a fire-safe cigarette or fire-safe furniture. (Really.)

This story by the Washington Post provides good outline of that debate.

PBDEs factor in because they are, in fact, really good at stopping fires. The problem is they have to be present in such quantities that they pose all the health problems, accumulate in the environment, etc...

True fact: PBDEs have been found in polar bears.