Flame Retardant Ban Advocates Admit New Ban Repeats Errors of
Last Ban Last week the House Environment Committee in Olympia
considered HB 1294 which would ban a certain type of flame-
retardant compound and create a process for identifying
alternatives. Supporters of the legislation argue this will get
us off the "toxic treadmill" of moving from one risky compound
to the next. As we noted last week, however, there are some key
questions supporters need to answer if they truly want to avoid
actually making the situation worse. The advocates of the bill
admit that banning the previous compound known as PBDE led to
the current compound, known as TRIS, and that TRIS is more risky
than PBDEs. During the hearing, legislators asked two of the
questions we raised. What Will Replace Tris? Both the Washington
Toxics Coalition and the Department of Ecology claimed in
testimony that safer alternatives exist. Representative
Overstreet asked if Ecology had actually developed a list of
those alternatives. The representative