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A Toxics-Free Future

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Flame Retardants

PFAS

Occupational Firefighter Concerns on PFAS: What Do Dockers® Pants and the Precautionary Principle Have to Do With Firefighting Foams and Firefighters?

PFAS occur in more products than just firefighting foams.
Friday, 07 August 2020

Fluorinated firefighting foams were transitioned from long chain to short chain PFAS due to the US EPA Stewardship Program. "In 2006, EPA invited eight major leading companies in the PFAS industry to join in a global stewardship program."1 This change was initiated due to increasing concerns about PFAS contamination and health issues connected to PFAS.

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POPs

POPs Country Situation Report- Macedonia

Wednesday, 11 March 2020 - 11:58am

Анализа на имплементацијата на националната законска рамка за перзистентни органски загадувачи

Ecosvest POPs Infographic_1   Ecosvest POPs Infographic_3

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POPs

POPs Country Situation Report- Senegal

Tuesday, 10 March 2020 - 5:24pm

Situation des Polluants Organiques Persistants (POP) au Senegal

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POPs

Press Release: Canada is urged to stop the recycling of products with globally banned toxic flame retardants: Groups seek greater protection to the environment and health

Wednesday, 29 January 2020

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Stockholm Convention

EU Withdraws its Toxic Recycling Exemption

IPEN and Arnika Press Release
Wednesday, 22 January 2020

Environmental Health Groups Celebrate the End to EU Allowance for Banned Flame Retardant Chemicals to Enter Recycling Streams & New Products

Gothenburg, Sweden The European Union (EU) has taken an important step towards cleaning up its recycling; it will no longer allow materials containing a class of toxic, globally banned flame retardants known as PBDEs to be recycled. Researchers had revealed that across Europe, alarming levels of toxic banned flame retardants and related chemicals, which originated largely from discarded electronics equipment, were contaminating the recycling stream and new consumer goods made from recycled plastics. Environmental health advocates applaud the EU’s decision and encourage the six remaining countries with PBDE recycling exemptions to follow suit.

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Rotterdam Convention

Interventions 8 May, 2019

Friday, 10 May 2019 - 8:58am
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Dioxin

Poisoning Our Goods: Toxics in Recycled Plastics

Wednesday, 1 May 2019 - 12:00am
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POPs

Anchorage Alaska Assembly Approves Landmark Ban on Flame Retardants in Consumer Products

Wednesday, 20 March 2019

(Anchorage, Alaska, US): With a unanimous vote, the Anchorage Assembly passed Assembly Ordinance 2019-15(S), an ordinance prohibiting certain consumer products containing flame retardant chemicals at the March 19 regular assembly meeting. This landmark public health ordinance now stands among the strongest laws in the nation. 

“One of the core values of ACAT is the elimination of chemicals that harm environmental and human health and to replace them with safe alternatives,” said Pamela Miller, Executive Director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT) and Co-Chair of IPEN. “There is considerable peer-reviewed scientific information about the adverse health effects of flame-retardant chemicals including cancer and neurodevelopmental and reproductive toxicity. This ordinance moves our city one step closer to eliminating the unnecessary use of harmful flame retardants in all household products. We appreciate the work of the Anchorage Assembly to achieve its passage,” she said. 

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POPs

NGOs React to New EU Rules Allowing Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Toys and Other Products Made of Recycled Plastics

Thursday, 14 March 2019

With six other health and environment groups, IPEN has written a letter to European Environment Ministers and members of the EU Parliament and Commission to express concerns about toxic recycling. In the letter, the NGOs call on them to adopt strict and protective limits for PBDEs in articles and waste into the POPs Regulation, so that the EU will comply with its obligations stemming from the Stockholm Convention.

This letter addresses the European Parliament and Council decision on the reform of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that was announced in late February. Hailed as protective for health, the decision will actually cause more children to be exposed to hazardous flame-retardant chemicals associated with thyroid disruption and neurological deficits. The decision permits high levels of hazardous brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) that are in electronics waste, including those already banned by the Stockholm Convention, to be allowed in recycled plastics.

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