This executive summary encompasses three reports and provides context and overviews of the ways in which the chemicals studied poison recycling streams and stymie the promise of a healthy and environmentally sustainable circular economy.
Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) are man-made chemicals that are regularly added to consumer products to reduce fire-related injury and damage. The massive production and use of BFRs was initiated as a response to frequent fires started by cigarettes in the 1970s. This solution focused on chemical fire retardants, rather than measures to increase fire safety of cigarettes and led to the development of related fire safety standards focused on chemical fire retardance.
This report studied BPA in products in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sri Lanka & Tanzania that come into contact with food or with children’s mouths.
An international team of experts will investigate the industrial hot spots in Khok Sa-ad sub district, Kalasin province. The area is infamous for Thailand’s largest e-waste dump, where scrap from all over the world was formerly collected. The toxic pollution is even enhanced by local dubious dismantling and recycling sites affecting its wider vicinity, including poor local communities. Environmentalists from Arnika [1], EARTH [2], and the local administrative organisation will collect samples for analysis of toxic chemicals in early February.