The Boston City Council voted March 23 to amend the city’s Fire Prevention Code, allowing hospitals, schools, colleges and other public buildings with sprinkler systems to use furniture free of toxic flame retardant chemicals. Lynn Wolbarst, LWVMA legislative specialist on the environment, had testified before the City Council on the hazards caused by these chemicals, including the risk of cancer for fire fighters.
Efforts to phase out this type of flame retardants in children’s products and upholstered furniture continue at the state level. LWVMA is supporting bills which were recently reported favorably out of the Joint Committee on Public Health and the Joint Committee on Public Safety to ban the sale of products with these chemicals in the state.