Are There Endocrine Disruptors in Your Sofa?
I spend a lot of time on my couch. I’m not above a 5-hour television marathon, or sitting on it all Sunday as I poke around on my computer and my husband watches golf. I’m on it right now.
The couch in question is from Ikea, it traveled from my husband’s previous apartment, and it’s made of plastic—well, faux leather. The model has since been cancelled because people’s couches, ours included, starting looking like they were melting in spots, which is some kind of defect of this mysterious material.
It’s a surprisingly attractive looking couch, not one that makes you think “wow, those people have a plastic couch.” But I think about that often enough, and it bugs be not because I care that it’s cheap (or cheap-looking) but that I suspect the thing carries with it more chemicals than I can count, and probably more than one endocrine disruptor (and bendy plastics tend to).
But apparently everyone’s couch is filled with potentially harmful chemicals, not just my plastic beauty. In a recent New York Times article Nick Kristof (a bigger hero to us by the day) he talks about the flame retardents in sofas, and a new investigative series called “Playing With Fire” in the Chicago Tribune.
The Tribune series is exhaustive, and maybe on Sunday I’ll plop onto my couch and read it through. In the meantime, Kristof highlights some of the infuriating facts about how flame retardants got into our sofas. Instead of paraphrasing, I’ve exerted sections of his article below.
Chances are that if you’re sitting on a couch right now, it contains flame retardants. This will probably do no good if your house catches fire — although it may release toxic smoke.
There is growing concern that the chemicals are hazardous, with evidence mounting of links to cancer, fetal impairment and reproductive problems.
It turns out that our furniture first became full of flame retardants because of the tobacco industry… tobacco companies mounted a surreptitious campaign for flame retardant furniture, rather than safe cigarettes, as the best way to reduce house fires.
An advocacy group called Citizens for Fire Safety later pushed for laws requiring fire retardants in furniture…But Citizens for Fire Safety has only three members, which also happen to be the three major companies that manufacture flame retardants.
The problem with flame retardants is that they migrate into dust that is ingested, particularly by children playing on the floor… some retardants were very similar to banned PCBs, which have been linked to everything from lower I.Q. to diabetes, and that it was reasonable to expect certain flame retardants to have similar consequences.
Arlene Blum, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, told me, “For pregnant women, they can alter brain development in the fetus.” Her research decades ago led to the removal of a flame retardant, chlorinated Tris, from children’s pajamas. But chlorinated Tris is still used in couches and nursing pillows (without any warning labels).
So there it is, we can thank the cigarette industry, and the three companies that stood to make billions, for the presence of flame retardants in our couches. It’s pretty disheartening stuff.
This may feel like a leap from the beauty business, but it’s actually not. It’s exactly the same kind of unregulated and unlabeled presence of chemicals in consumer products—chemicals that may be doing harm to our bodies, our kids, and our unborn babies. Do you think about the stuff in your couch, your clothing, your home? [Insert exhausted groan here.]
ughhhhh. your posts are always so timely. my boyfriend and I just decided last night that it’s time to throw out this piece of junk couch we got off craigslist and buy a real one. in the back of my head I was cringing because I know couches must be full of bad stuff, they smell awful when you first buy them. I had decided to ignore my inner cringe and go for it anyway, but now I don’t think I can! although what are we supposed to do to avoid this?! I’m not looking forward to researching how to buy furniture that won’t disrupt my endocrine system haha
Vey timely indeed… I am currently reading the book “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” by Smith and Lourie. The whole thing is making me a little paranoid about all consumer products. I believe that at the very least we need better labelling to make more informed choices. So far I am betting on reducing my use of all things plastic and vacuuming frequently with a HEPA vacuum cleaner (picks up particles like PBRs.) I feel like buying less stuff is probably also good for both my wallet and my health.
On an unrelated note, I am still confused about the labelling difference between North America and Europe for cosmetics when it comes to the natural components of essential oil (such as linalool, etc). I read your book but I still feel like I would need a list of brands that are safe despite listing these ingredients in compliance with European regulations. As mentioned before in comments, this is not handled very well by EWG. I suspect brands like Weleda, Pomega5, and Dr Hauschka are suffering from the confusion…
I do think about this stuff, but I haven’t worried about it as much as I do about products that are easier and cheaper to replace than a sofa. I feel like I know how to check out a skin cream, for example, but have little to no idea how to determine if a piece of furniture is free of toxins. I know I don’t want it if the fabric has that chemically icky smell, but who knows what’s in there that I can’t easily detect. I’ve been thinking I need a new mattress, and was wondering how to go about finding something non toxic and reasonably priced.
Does anyone else worry about this regarding shoes? Sometimes when I order shoes/boots online they come and I open the box to a cloud of chemical stink. I imagine that’s because of treatments to the fabric or leather. Typically those would be returned unless I feel a little off gassing outdoors would handle it.
great… more stuff for me to be a paranoid freak about.
Woof. I just went down a rabbit hole of googling … here’s the best resource that I’ve found so far. Have definitely been thinking about going down this path with my next upcoming move.
http://www.sustainablefurnishings.org/
I’ve been reading a lot about this and there is good news. US senator Dick Durbin is trying to revive the Safe Chemicals Act. Write your senators to let them know you want them to support it. Since there are not a lot of nontoxic alternatives out there, I think it’s up to the government to look out for us all.I’m crossing my fingers that this bill gets passed. The cheapest nontoxic sofa I could find so far is $3000! Yikes.Thankfully, I was able find a nontoxic mattress for my 10 month old daughter that we could afford. We’re definitely getting that for her sometime this summer when we’ve saved enough.
It,s funny how different issues rear there ugly heads at different times in our lives. Ten years ago when I was pregnant with my first I found a book in my midwife’s lending library called ,I think I’m remembering it right, Non Toxic Baby. Of course being pregnant, it was a lot harder for me to brush the information under the carpet. I cant remember the details about which toxins are where but these are the guidelines that I took away with me when I set out to replace half of our furniture on a really tiny budget.
-glues can be toxic. Particle board and pressed wood are bad, look for solid wood.
-the more stuffing, upholstery, padding the more chemicals. Look for chesterfields and chairs with wooden legs or wooden frames that cushions rest on top of.
-old furniture is less toxic as it has had a chance to off gas and really old furniture was never treated in the first place.
-thrift stores, antique shops, garage sales and consignment shops are your friends. If you visit an antique shop when they are expecting a container much of there stock will be marked down to make room. I once purchased an oak tallboy at one such sale for around $150. It had some minor damage and the shelves had been removed but that was fine as we were going to put our t.v. in it.
-pre 1950’s furniture is safer and there was such wide stylistic variety from 1900 to1950 that you can usually find something that works in any room.
-don’t hesitate to knock on your neighbours doors and ask if they are getting rid of say ,that charming little pine desk, that’s been sitting in their car port for the last week. Not only do you get to know your neighbours that way but they get to know you too. Over the years they have called me up and given me an amazing array of furniture including a set of antique spindle back farmhouse chairs, a gorgeous 6foot plus 100 year old pine cabinet , and a set of two elegant sturdy solid oak chairs. I was offered an eighty year old singer sewing machine as well and I had a hard time passing it up but I already had one. Even though my husband was a full time university student up untill three years ago we have always been able to find attractive safe furniture to suit us , our budget and our two rowdy growing boys.
Now regarding Ikea, my understanding was that while they still use chemicals often they use chemicals that are, well , I guess you could say less bad(Don’t quote me on this). The one place that I have run up against a bit of a brick wall is with mattresses. The majority of the natural mattresses out there that are in my price range seem to have latex in them which is fine unless, like me, you are allergic. I haven’t researched this in a few years but considering how much time we spend in our beds its worth a thought.
Very timely – I’m in the middle of mattress-shopping so I’ve been surrounded in a cloud of off-gassing information.
I will use this as an excuse to keep my elderly leather (sorry, peta) sofa – it’s out of gas already.
Hey Siobhan and Alexandra,
I noticed many times you posted about nutrition, one-week-veggie-eating challenges, and the like. Here is something interesting to try( I personally did not do it yet)
http://linahansonblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/intro-to-the-3-day-juice-cleanse/
http://linahansonblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/the-pre-cleanse/
http://linahansonblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-cleanse/
P.S. this is totally off topic:)
I also have the same concerns. Coincidentally, I also found a blog that spotted great furniture companies and the blogger is an activist in reproductive rights. http://laurasrules.org/2012/04/28/sofa-saga-part-4-success-two-great-sources-for-truly-green-sofas/
I hope you find it as useful as it was for me.
@Olivia
Wow this is an amazing blog thanks for sharing!
And now I’m off to buy a new yoga mat since I just read that mine may contain PVC, ugh