Canada falls short on regulation of PBDEs

The Labour Environmental Alliance/Toxic Free Canada added its name to the growing list of environmental organizations expressing dismay at the decision by the federal government to grant an exemption to the main group of fire-retardant PBDEs still being used by industry, while banning those that have largely been phased out.

New regulations published July 10 ban the manufacture or import of the two large groups of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), penta and octa-PBDEs, but they exempt decaBDEs from the ban, despite evidence showing that decaBDEs are also persistent in the environment and can degrade to the more toxic forms of PBDEs in the environment.

Once used extensively in furniture, mattresses and automotive seating as fire retardants, the penta- and octaBDEs were largely phased out by industry following regulatory action in Europe and several U.S. states. But decaBDEs are still widely used in electronics applications, including computers, cell phones and other digital devices imported into Canada.

PBDEs have been associated with a range of adverse health effects, including disruption of thyroid hormones, immune system impairment and cancer in laboratory animals. Based on animal studies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared decaBDE a possible human carcinogen.

The European Union initially exempted decaBDEs from its ban in 2006, but that exemption was overturned in a European Court of Justice ruling in April, which upheld the ban on all forms of PBDEs. Some U.S. states, including Washington and Maine, have passed legislation to ban all PBDEs, including decaBDEs.

“Canada led the world in being the first to declare bisphenol-A toxic, but it has fallen well behind the rest of the world in acting on toxic PBDEs,” said LEAS/Toxic Free Canada executive director Mae Burrows. “That will leave Canadians’ health and the environment vulnerable to the effects of this toxic chemical.”

Ecojustice Canada also noted in a letter to federal environment minister John Baird that the department had not released a State of the Science Report on the Transformation and Bioaccumulation of DecaBDE, even though peer review of the report was completed in January, 2008.

Many leading manufacturers of electronic, including Sony, Panasonic and Apple, have already removed decaBDEs from their products, demonstrating that safer alternatives are available to replace decaBDEs in products.

But the automotive industry was among those putting pressure on government to exempt decaBDEs  from the ban. And the industry group representing the makers of the fire retardant chemicals, the U.S.-based Bromine Science and Environmental Foundation, has continued to insist that deca is “a safe product.”

The federal government’s exemption has also highlighted the often significant gap between government assessment of toxic chemicals and “risk management” decisions taken to control those chemicals. Health and Environment Canada have been assessing some 200 challenge chemicals — those known to be the most hazardous — and has already declared many of them toxic, according to the criteria set under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. But the risk management decisions, including regulations to control those chemicals have fallen far short of what the chemicals’ toxicity would indicate is necessary.

One of the most important actions was Health Minister Tony Clement’s announcement April 18 that would be introducing regulations following a 60-day comment period to ban polycarbonate baby bottles containing bisphenol-A. More than a month after the expiry of that comment period, Canadians are still waiting to see the regulations.

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