The eggs of peregrine falcons living in California’s big cities contain some of the highest levels ever found in wildlife of a flame retardant used in consumer products, a new study has found.
Studies of peregrine falcon eggs and chicks by state scientists reveal that the birds hunting in San Francisco, Long Beach, Los Angeles and San Diego are ingesting the flame retardant called PBDEs, believed to leach out of foam mattresses, synthetic fabrics, plastic casings of televisions, electronics and other products. The research shows that the indoor chemicals can contaminate the outdoors and even humans.
The predator birds – which can fly 200 mph – feed on pigeons and other birds, which probably pick up the chemicals in the environment from sewage, landfills and runoff, scientists say. Humans can be exposed by inhaling household dust and absorbing the chemicals through the skin.
“Urban wildlife are the sentinel species that can tell us about chemicals of emerging concern that are coming from city exposures. Information from these species can be useful to us in protecting the sensitive members of our population like infants, children and pregnant women,” said Kim Hooper, one of the leading research scientists with the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Chemistry Laboratory.
The prevalence of PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, is raising concern among research scientists. The flame retardants are known as endocrine disrupters because they interfere with the function of the thyroid hormone, which is critical to the proper development of the brain and nervous system. Hooper is concerned that the levels of PBDEs in peregrine falcons are close to levels damaging developing neurological systems in lab rats and mice.
Scientists compare the flame retardants to the notorious PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, because of their potential for harming wildlife and humans, the persistence in the environment and the enormous amounts in commercial use. Three decades after PCBs were banned as insulators in transformers and capacitors, they are still found in San Francisco Bay, although their concentrations in birds and fish are diminishing as levels of PBDEs rise.
Two years ago, California was the first state to ban two of the commercial mixtures of PBDEs – octa and penta. State chemists Hooper and Myrto Petreas and their teams had found that women in Northern California had some of the world’s highest PBDE levels in breast milk and tissue.
A third mixture, called deca, is still in use and represents 70 percent of the PBDEs put into consumer products. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, has introduced a bill (AB706) to ban all brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, a measure supported by environmental groups.
One of the concerns over deca is that the amount in the environment is under-reported and might be more prevalent than is measured in the environment because it is unstable and breaks down to other forms of PBDEs.
State scientists decided to study the predatory birds, although there are only seven known nesting pairs in the Bay Area. Along with other raptors and brown pelicans, their numbers plummeted when DDT and other chlorinated compounds caused thinning and breakage of eggshells. Scientists fear the PBDEs will do the same.
– from Jane Kay SFGate
Polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) are major components of commercial formulations often used as flame retardants in furniture foam (pentaBDE), plastics for TV cabinets, consumer electronics, wire insulation, back coatings for draperies and upholstery (decaBDE), and plastics for personal computers and small appliances (octaBDE). The benefit of these chemicals is their ability to slow ignition and rate of fire growth, and as a result increase available escape time in the event of a fire.
If somebody/Ad trying to sell a product saying that it is fire resistance then please don’t buy that product. sure there will be PBDEs.