Re:Toxic sofas are a secret scandal
by cullenking on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @10:53AM
(#22424058)
A few years back I bought a sofa from a small manufacturer that claimed it was free of fire retardants. Similar story for my mattress. The mattress side took some research, but from what I found most foam mattresses are free of them, and some manufacturers use a tightly woven cotton cover to get the fire retardant properties, rather than a cover treated with fire retardant chemicals.
Do your own research, but from what I found it’s not too hard to be careful about this stuff.
Re:Toxic sofas are a secret scandal
by sidewndr46 on Wednesday February 26, 2020 @11:02AM
(#22424157)
Looks like IKEA doesn't use brominated flame retardants.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/files/pdf/5c/df/5cdf003d/ikea_faq...
The underlying problem here is that furniture doesn't need flame retardants, period. You wind up with this weird mouse & cat game. A drive to replace one additive just find something new, previously unknown, and possibly worse.
For example banning lead additives from gasoline was a good thing. It was replaced with MTBE which causes to groundwater contamination. This has now been banned in the US, which ironically sees ethanol replacing it. Ethanol production obviously predates gasoline, so it could have been used all along.
I believe that mattresses are somehow exempt in the US? So the futon becomes a weird gray area. You can buy one with the express intent of using it only as a couch, but you put a mattress on it. I'm not 100% sure to be honest.