A HOUSEHOLD chemical widely used in TVs, toasters, cushions and curtains has turned up in polar bears in the Arctic. The flame retardant鈥檚 toxicity is still disputed, but campaigners claim it is becoming one of our most pervasive and troubling industrial chemicals.
Deca-bromodiphenyl ether (deca-BDE) is added to dozens of household commodities. But green campaigners say it should be classed with DDT, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and dioxins, and banned from use.
Last week, scientists from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Oslo announced that they had found traces of deca-BDE in the body fat of polar bears and gulls on Svalbard, a Norwegian Arctic archipelago hundreds of kilometres from any major sources of the compound. Geir Wing Gabrielsen, the institute鈥檚 head of toxicology, says the discovery shows that the compound persists in the environment and, like PCBs and DDT, can be carried by winds and currents to remote regions, where it accumulates in animals.
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In recent years PCBs, dioxins and other industrial chemicals collectively known as persistent organic pollutants have turned up in the Arctic and wildlife at concentrations greater than in industrial regions. They are carried by the wind and researchers believe they condense out in colder climates. Some of the compounds 鈥� tagged the 鈥渄irty dozen鈥� 鈥� have recently been banned by international treaty.
The Norwegian announcement came a week after deca-BDE was highlighted in a survey of industrial chemicals by the international environment group WWF, which said there was evidence that the chemical caused brain damage in young children. Norwegian environment minister Boerge Brende has warned that deca-BDE is set to become 鈥渢he PCB of the future鈥�, while WWF says the fact that it travels long distances, accumulates in wildlife and potentially breaks down into other harmful compounds is enough to justify a ban.
Deca-BDE has so far escaped tight controls on its use in consumer products, even though its close relatives penta-DBE and octa-DBE are becoming tightly regulated. Both are to be banned within the European Union from August this year. But legislators in the EU and North America have so far given deca-BDE the benefit of the doubt.
Toxicologists in the chemical industry say that the large size of its molecules makes the compound unlikely to accumulate in body tissue. But deca-BDE has been shown to damage brain development in mice, and research highlighted by WWF suggests that deca-BDE鈥檚 breakdown products, which include penta-DBE and octa-DBE, are more toxic.
Manufacturers use deca-BDE to stop fabrics and plastics from catching fire. In the US, it is added to 80 per cent of the plastic casings for electrical goods. Global production is around 25,000 tonnes a year, half of it in North America. The industry says the chemical saves thousands of lives a year, but critics say there are alternatives.
Deca-BDE is not chemically bound to the products to which it is added, and so easily escapes into household and office dust. It has been found in falcons鈥� eggs in Sweden, fish in North Carolina and the blood of nursing mothers in the US. It has also been found in the blood of around a third of a small sample of randomly chosen people in the UK.