Breasts of Toxic Burden

For the second straight year, the Washington State Senate failed to vote on a billl that would require the phasing out of PBDEs. (We've written previously about PBDEs, which are accumulating steadily in breast milk, and are implicated in the impairment of childhood development. They're also reaching alarming levels in wildlife.)

The bill had the votes to pass, but a few senators blocked the bill from coming to a vote. (They didn't include that part in the Schoolhouse Rock song.)

According to the Washington Toxics Coalition, the bill (HB 1488) sponsored by Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina) and Sen. Debbie Regala (D-Tacoma) would have:

1) Phased out the most widely used form of PBDE -- known as deca -- in enclosures for televisions and computers by 2010. 2) Phased out deca in residential upholstered furniture, mattresses, and mattress pads by 2012. 3) Phased out the penta and octa forms of PBDEs in consumer products by 2007. These two forms have already been voluntarily phased out of production by the U.S. chemical industry. 4) Required the departments of Ecology and Health in consultation with the State Fire Marshal to identify safer, effective alternatives before the ban on deca took effect.

The bill was opposed by the chemical industry lobby and supported by such left-wing hotheads as the Washington State Nurses Association, the Washington chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Washington state departments of Ecology and Health.

Some environmental legislation did get the green light this session, as Real Change and the Cascadia Scorecard report. Of particular interest to bloggers may be the E-Waste Recycling bill. (That dust collecting on your old computer is far from an innocent dustbunny: that's right, it's a toxic bunny, chockfull of PBDEs, just like real ones.) Soon taking your old electronic equipment to a drop-off site won't cost you money, as it does currently. More importantly, manufacturers now have an incentive to develop electronics equipment that does, in fact, recycle.