It is, of course, wonderful that the State of California has revised their antique law requiring flame retardants in furniture. But shame on the Environmental Working Group for failing to point out the many other components of sofas which are impacting our health! Of the five sofas mentioned, West Elm stands out as giving no information at all on the components - a sure sign of concern. Of the remaining four, all use polyurethane for cushioning (Crate and Barrel tries to up the ante by using "soy-based polyurethane foam", one of Terrachoice's greenwashing sins); Room & Board and Ikea both use "engineered hardwood" (i.e., glulam or other manufactured wood glued together) and Ikea uses fiberboard. And none offer an Oeko-Tex or GOTS certified fabric! And for your health, that means:
FRAME:
· If you have chosen a sofa which uses "engineered hardwood" or fiberboard, then you will also be living with formaldehyde emissions. See our blog post:
https://oecotextiles.wordpress...
· The hardwood is not FSC certified (despite Crate and Barrel's use of "USA certified sustainable hardwood - by not mentioning the certification by name I assume it is self-certified). That means you've chipped away at your children's inheritance of this Earth by supporting practices which don't support healthy forests, which are critical to maintaining life: forests filter pollutants from the air, purify the water we drink, and help stabilize the global climate by absorbing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. See our blog post about the importance of FSC certified wood:
https://oecotextiles.wordpress…
CUSHIONS:
· Even high density polyurethane foam - as well as soy foam, the new media darling - emits methyloxirane, which causes cancer and genetic mutations, and toluene, a neurotoxin, as well as other chemicals. Polyurethane/soy foams oxidize over time, sending these chemicals into the air, where you can breathe them in. Highly poisonous, even in small amounts, these compounds can disrupt hormonal and reproductive systems, and are toxic to the immune system. Early life exposure has been shown to disrupt brain development. See our blog post about soy based foam:
https://oecotextiles.wordpress…
DECORATIVE FABRIC:
· Produced without regard to the kinds of chemicals used in dyestuffs, processing or finishes - because none of these sofas offer Oeko-Tex or GOTS certified fabrics. Fabrics are, by weight, about 25% synthetic chemicals, and textile processing uses some of the most dangerously toxic chemicals known - among
them, lead, mercury, arsenic, formaldehyde, Bisphenol A (BPA), PFOA. There are no requirements that manufacturers disclose the chemicals used in processing - chemicals which remain in the finished fabrics. Often the chemicals are used under trade names, or are protected by legislation as "trade secrets" in food and drug articles - but fabrics don't even have a federal code to define what
can/cannot be used - because fabrics are totally unregulated in the
U.S., except in terms of fire retardancy or intended use. See one (of many) blog posts on the subject:
https://oecotextiles.wordpress…
GLUE, VARNISH, PAINT
· Finally,glues, varnishes, paint all contribute to the toxic load of evaporating chemicals if conventional products have been used on the sofa.