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Death to Wildlife Is in Your Fire Retardant Used for Furniture and Everything Else
The fear of fire and the devastation it can cause to homes has led us to gravitate toward fire-retardant materials, but at what cost to our planet?
Our oceans, the font of life and mystery, account for 96.5% of the water on Earth. These aquatic worlds are teaming with life, much of which is still unknown and waiting to be explored.
The year was 1929, and scientists believed they had discovered an amazing new chemical known as PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which were to be the answer to problems in keeping electrical systems working well and acting both as coolant and lubricant in a mixture of ways.
They came in early liquids, solids, or vapors, and no one perceived the potential dangers to humans via the food chain and the fatty tissues of the animals we consume. But they also carried unknown dangers to our global health and that of our wildlife.
Even after 40 years, when a ban in the 1970s was imposed because of the realization of this threat, these materials are still present and circulating in the oceans, killing off our wildlife. The use and production of PCBs are supposed to end by 2028. What does that mean for humans around the world? Their presence means medical illnesses in many ways that affect the immune…
