Our Toxic Planet

In AP Environmental Science, we have discussed how toxic chemicals are present in daily life. But what does this mean for us exactly? What does it mean to be surrounded by harmful substances. The interesting part is that they're everywhere: on our clothes, in our bedsheets - even in the food we eat. But what does this mean? How did they get there? And more importantly - how does this affect us? Can this be damaging to human beings? These toxic chemicals that are present in our everyday life have a serious impact on our health and the environment around us. We may not yet realize it, but to an extent, we are all sick because of them.

To understand these chemicals more is to understand why they are so prevalent in man-made objects. One example is aluminium hydroxide. A chemical popular with manufacturers, aluminium hydroxide is commonly used as a flame retardant for plastics and textiles. Basically, this chemical acts as a finish that inhibits, suppresses, or delays the production of flames which prevents the spread of fire. A chemical like this appears safe because it can prevent objects from catching fire and harming people. However, if a chemical like this is burned and released into the atmosphere, it can have negative consequences for those that are around it. In a documentary our teacher assigned for us to watch in class, a veteran firefighter acquires a rare form of cancer most commonly found in workers that have had jobs in chemical factories. Puzzled by this rarity, he explains how he asks his doctor why this is the case, where the doctor explains rather jokingly that he did work in a chemical factory. The firefighter later explains how two other colleagues were diagnosed with the same rare form of cancer. He then concludes that recurring inhalation of chemicals released into the atmosphere by burning household materials is to blame for his unfortunate condition. "...And during this period of time too, it seemed like every month somebody else would be diagnosed with some form of cancer... Every month we'd be going to the funeral of somebody else that had contracted it, that had retired and died." - Tony Stefani, San Francisco Fire Department 1974 - 2002.

However, sometimes it takes less than a material to burn for someone to inhale a toxic flame retardant. Dr. Sarah Janssen, of the UCSF School of Medicine explains how flame retardants in the foams of couches are "not tightly bound to the foam", and "they like to attach to dust particles." She later describes how simply sitting on a couch can cause these chemicals that have clung to dust particles to float up out of your furniture, "which them eventually come back down and form a film on your couch or on the floor which is where most kids spend most of their time." This shows that simply putting your body on furniture is dangerous for your own health, and those that associate with this furniture.

The Chicago Tribune conducted an investigation on the potentially harmful effects of flame retardants, and found that ingesting or inhaling flame retardants have "damaging health effects, such as birth defects and cancer." - Patrician Callahan, investigator for the Chicago tribune. Callahan also discovered "a large amount of deceit and bribery from the chemical industry". Further investigation proved that chemical companies have funded politicians that have expressed the need to keep flame retardants in households in an effort to block any anti-flame retardant legislation from being enacted. A Maine politician, Hannah Pingree, expressed concern over the presence of flame retardants in daily life. After having doctors running tests on her health, she was surprised to find that: "I saw that I had all these chemicals in my body including flame retardants, including mercury and arsenic..." Because of this, Hannah Pingree has devoted her time to removing flame retardants from our furniture.

In conclusion, it's scary knowing that there are toxic chemicals around us all the time, and even more frightening that we have already been affected by them. The chemicals within us now and repeated exposure could result in our death from cancer decades in the future. Regardless of location or age, these harmful substances are destroying our bodies, and we barely realize it. And the worst part, is that flame retardants may not actually stop fire. A recent study from expert Donald Lucas found that though flame retardants can slow down the rate of which furniture burns "when the fabric catches fire, you could end up with a bigger flame."

Is it not worrying having the information that these chemicals that were made with the intent of saving lives aren't actually doing their jobs?