Coalition wants FR mattresses without use of toxic chemicals
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, February 13, 2005
Sacramento, Calif. — The Children's Coalition for Fire Safe Mattresses is encouraging consumers to purchase what it believes are the safest fire-resistant mattresses available.
It claims that some mattress producers are "being tempted" to use toxic substances to make their products fire-safe, although it hasn't specified the substances or said who is using them.
The coalition, an advocacy group for burn survivors, is unveiling its Seal of Commendation at a "Sacramento Tea Party" here this week on the steps of the state Capitol. It plans to offer the seal free of charge to retailers, mattress manufacturers and their suppliers "who seek to distinguish themselves as offering the optimum choices for safe sleeping environments for families."
Whitney Davis, director of the Coalition, said the program is needed to protect children. "After we wrote the law requiring mattress makers to stop our children from burning in their beds," he said, "some in the industry are being tempted to poison our kids instead."
California's new open-flame mattress flammability law went on the books in January. It requires that beds produced this year and sold in California pass a stringent burn test. The law does not specify how those safer beds should be made or what FR materials should be used. It leaves those decisions to bedding producers.
Davis said that "responsible industry members did the right thing and provided a safe, non-toxic barrier solution to comply with the law. They took the high road."
But, he continued, "Others are being tempted to take the low road, where a maker can achieve illusory compliance by applying a temporary, topical treatment that can be ingested by the sleeping child."
At the media event this week, Davis will stress the consumer's right to know about hazards in products. He will lay out a plan to fight for disclosure of "chemical hazards" in mattresses, furniture and bedding.
And he said he plans to review the "failure of our government to protect consumers from the dangers of exposure to chemicals from unregulated imported products."
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