Yes, I’m here to tell you about some more of the bad stuff that’s found in your home.  It’s depressing that we just can’t seem to escape all the junk in this world.  But, don’t despair.  We can at least try to better our environment inside and out, which helps a lot!

I wanted to talk about fire retardants, (PBDEs and Deca), since we’ve already covered phthlates, BPA, and other ways to go green.  PBDEs are a type of flame retardant found in electronics, furniture, mattresses, futons, foam carpet padding, children’s car seats, automobile interiors, foam pillows, and other foam items.  According to a new EWG study, toddlers and preschoolers have three times the level of toxic fire retardants in their bloodstream as their mothers.  It’s very sad to me that children in the US have the heaviest burden of Deca pollution in the world.  Deca is a neurological and hormone disruptor and children are more susceptible to it’s effects. All of these different things leach chemicals into the air and onto your skin, where they get in your blood stream and even your breast milk.

Here are a few ways to avoid PBDE’s in foam according to EWG:

1. Inspect foam items.  Replace anything with a ripped cover or foam that is breaking down.
2. Use a vacuum fitted with a HEPA filter.  These type of vacuums are more efficient at trapping small particles and will likely remove more contaminants and other allergens from your home.
3. Do not reupholster foam furniture.
4. Be careful when removing old carpet.  The padding may contain PBDEs.
5. When purchasing new products ask the manufacturer what type of fire retardants they use.  Avoid products with brominated fire retardants, and choose less flammable options like leather, wool, and cotton.
6. Buy furniture from Ikea!  Theirs is PBDE free!

And, ways to avoid PBDEs and Deca in electronics:

• purchase brands which have publicly committed to phasing out all brominated fire retardants, such as:  Acer, Apple, Eizo Nanao, LG Electronics, Lenovo, Matsushita, Microsoft, Nokia, Phillips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony-Ericsson, and Toshiba

Now I want to tell you a few more ways to help clean up your indoor environment.  Johnny and I have this great book, How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office.  I think that title is pretty self explanatory, but I’ll name a few plants mentioned in the book.  If you’d like to add some of these great plants to you home or office to purify your air, think about rubber plant, bamboo palm, or peace lily.  I think that seems like a pretty easy (and a great looking) solution!

I don’t want to weigh you down with one more thing to worry about.  I just want to try and help you be informed on ways you can change your envirnoment for the better.

Update: Please see my new post My Search for Lead-Free Prenatal Vitamins

Last week, the day after I wrote A Vitamin a Day, I read this post on vitamins at Z Recommends.  So naturally, I checked the FDA report, and there were my prenatals!!  The levels of lead were very low, but I freaked, just a bit.  I emailed Rainbow Light and simply asked “Can you please tell me why there is lead in my prenatal vitamin?”  Below is their response:

Update on Lead August 29, 2008

Rainbow Light regularly conducts tests on our products to ascertain that any naturally occurring lead levels are within the legal limitations. Rainbow Light uses botanical materials with the lowest detectable lead level available on the market. Using strict testing methods, and after allowable exclusions for naturally occurring lead, as described in detail below,  Rainbow Light products have all been found to be below the No Observed Effect Level (safety level), and well within safety limits for health.

In early 2007, FDA became aware of reports of elevated lead levels in certain vitamins, which became an issue of concern to FDA, Congress, and the public. A survey was conducted to determine the content of lead (Pb) in vitamins labeled for women and children and results were subsequently published in Journal of Agricultural and Food chemistry in July 2008 and on the FDA website in August 2008. Because the results were overall quite good, there has been little media coverage on this survey. None of the levels ended up exceeding FDA’s PTTI (provisional total tolerable intake levels) for lead; the highest came out to less than half that.  Some products listed did not appear to meet the Prop65 standard which might be a concern for labeling in CA, but is nowhere close to a public health concern.

The FDA has estimated that the safe daily intake of “lead” from all sources is 750 mcg for most adults, and 250 mcg for pregnant women. This means that most adults can be exposed to 750 mcg of lead per day, and no harm would be expected. However, the state of California’s Proposition 65, the most stringent law on this topic, has established a lower No Observed Effect Level (safety level) of 500 mcg of lead per day. Further, California’s Prop 65 imposes an extremely low limit of .5 mcg per day (one-thousandth of the 500 mcg No Observed Effect Level) as a per serving limit for food and dietary supplement products.

“Lead” is a naturally occurring mineral, found in the water, soil, air, as well as many everyday foods and botanicals.  Because there is a range of naturally occurring lead levels found in our foods, allowances are made for these separate from the strict California legal limits set above. For example, the USP acceptable level of naturally occurring lead in a daily serving of calcium is 4.5 mcg. An FDA analysis also acknowledges food products like fresh spinach with 2.4 mcg of lead per serving, canned spinach with 8.5 mcg per serving, and a glass of wine with about 7.7 mcg of lead.

Manufacturers of dietary supplements are allowed to exclude naturally occurring lead amounts from the above stated legal limits of Prop 65. The amount of lead that can be excluded depends on the type of consumer product.  There is a precedent California Court Case(2005, Case No. CGC-04-429563) that defines the naturally occurring lead limits for a wide range of botanical sources. The naturally occurring allowance for lead in the botanical products subject to the litigation was set at 3.5 mcg per daily serving. This means that, under the terms of the final consent agreement, a botanical dietary supplement product could conceivably have a lead content level of 3.5 mcg, plus the legal allowance of .5, for a total of 4 mcg per daily serving, and still not require a warning statement on the label in the state of California.

So, it seems there was no need for me to freak after all.  I had thought about naturally occurring lead, and that seems to be all it is.    For now, I’ll continue taking my Rainbow Light Prenatal One.  If your vitamin is on the report, I encourage you to email the manufacturer and ask them why.

Some other good articles covering this subject:

http://www.greendaily.com/2008/08/29/fda-finds-lead-in-vitamins/

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/lead-vitamins-082803