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Brominated Flame Retardants and Their Replacements in Food Packaging and Household Products: Uses, Human Exposure, and Health Effects

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Toxicants in Food Packaging and Household Plastics

Part of the book series: Molecular and Integrative Toxicology ((MOLECUL))

Abstract

Since the 1970s, the brominated flame retardants (BFRs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs), and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) have been used as additive or reactive flame retardants (FRs) in household products including foam furniture, baby products, mattresses, textiles, electronics, food packaging, and housing insulation to meet flammability standards. Many of these chemicals are now recognized as global contaminants and are associated with adverse health effects including endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity, developmental neurotoxicity, and cancer. Additive BFRs migrate out of products and accumulate in dust of indoor environments. Dust ingestion is the primary route of human exposure to BFRs, and studies link body burdens of adults and children to indoor dust concentrations. Because of health concerns, PentaBDE and OctaBDE mixtures were phased out of production in 2005, and DecaBDE and HBCDs are scheduled for global elimination by 2013. However, large amounts of in-use and discarded household products will continue to release these BFRs into the environment and TBBPA is still in high-volume use worldwide. Following the PBDE phase-out, many replacement FRs with known or suspected toxicity have been detected at increasing levels in household products and dust. Exposure of infants and children to FRs in baby products and house dust is of special concern. The continued use of FRs with known toxicities and introduction of untested replacement chemicals highlights the need to update flammability standards and modernize chemical policies to require disclosure and safety testing of FR chemicals prior to sale.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Because DecaBDE is predominantly composed of the congener BDE-209, the terms DecaBDE and BDE-209 are used interchangeably in the literature and in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Marine Studies, Marine Environmental Research Institute, Blue Hill, ME, USA

    Susan D. Shaw, Jennifer H. Harris & Michelle L. Berger

  2. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY, USA

    Susan D. Shaw & Kurunthachalam Kannan

  3. Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY, USA

    Bikram Subedi & Kurunthachalam Kannan

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Shaw, S.D., Harris, J.H., Berger, M.L., Subedi, B., Kannan, K. (2014). Brominated Flame Retardants and Their Replacements in Food Packaging and Household Products: Uses, Human Exposure, and Health Effects. In: Snedeker, S. (eds) Toxicants in Food Packaging and Household Plastics. Molecular and Integrative Toxicology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6500-2_3

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