> Brominated flame retardants — the class of compounds that includes PBDEs and these new compounds — were first developed in the 1970s to prevent burning in household electronics and appliances.
While the article doesn't say explicitly, I'm guessing that these flame retardants are there to make plastic components behave less like accelerants in the case of fire. Would moving away from plastic and to more wood, metal, and glass be a solution in some cases? In addition to being less flammable (except for wood), these materials are much less nasty than plastics if they end up getting dumped in the environment.
Plastic, because its so cheap is pervasive in society. I think that it will be seen as archaic and unthinkable in 100 years for how much we use plastic. Some plastics made out of plant fibers or something might be better. But there are so many things that just being made out of metal, wood, rubber or glass it would be a health improvement.
>Plastic, because its so cheap is pervasive in society.
that's one of a million advantages plastics offer; they didn't get to be so pervasive because they were just cheap.
easily formed, sterilizable, cleanable, machinable, dyable, flexible, adjustable durometer, incredibly strong, impact resistant, weather resistant, transparent, lightweight, shatterproof, recyclable, fairly safe manufacturing processes and made out of just about anything.
yeah, there are health concerns with some plastics that we need to address, but those same health concerns (and many more) exist within industrialized paper/wood/metal/rubber manufacturing centers as well; we're just shifting the danger.
> exist within industrialized paper/wood/metal/rubber `
Except the part about endocrine disruptors and micro plastics, which arguably are two of the most important issues, which never happened with these other materials
> we're just shifting the danger.
And scaling it like never before, the price will be paid for centuries, just like with fossil fuels. The fact that they were neat for a few decades won't cut it for our descendants
While the article doesn't say explicitly, I'm guessing that these flame retardants are there to make plastic components behave less like accelerants in the case of fire. Would moving away from plastic and to more wood, metal, and glass be a solution in some cases? In addition to being less flammable (except for wood), these materials are much less nasty than plastics if they end up getting dumped in the environment.