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Are You Safe Sitting on Your Sofa? |
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Author: Amy Willbanks, Vice President
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Currently, most of the regulations involving flammability codes for residential upholstery fabrics are voluntary. The Upholstered Furniture Action Council (UFAC) was created in 1974 to develop measures for making upholstered furniture more flame resistant to smoldering cigarettes. The UFAC is composed of furniture manufacturers, retailers and suppliers. They conduct ongoing research to improve the quality of upholstery fabrics and they encourage industry wide compliance with the voluntary standards.
Approximately 80% of all fires are home fires and about 90% of fire fatalities occur in home fires. Cigarettes are the leading cause of home fires. The UFAC has aided in the 76.8% decline of cigarette fires over the last 20 years. The reduction has been accomplished by implementing consumer education programs, which address fire safety issues, improving fabric manufacturing processes, and through a decline in the number of smokers.
Even with the decline in cigarette related home fires, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) is currently proposing a mandatory regulation on upholstery fabrics. This regulation would require that all upholstery fabrics be treated with flame retardant chemicals that are possibly toxic. These chemicals would be the same or similar to those that were banned from children's sleepwear due to the possibility that they could cause cancer. Germany and other European nations have already banned the use of some of these chemicals. There are studies currently being done on the harmful effects of the chemicals.
The UFAC does not want the regulation to become mandatory due to the problems that would be caused by it. The flame retardants would possibly be harmful not only to the consumers who purchase the furniture, but the textile and furniture employees as well. The chemicals would increase the price of furniture, possibly causing families to put off buying new furniture. The chemicals would also effect the hand and the beauty of the fabrics.
There are several methods that could be employed to decrease the risk of fires without putting the industry employees' and consumers' health at risk and without increasing furniture prices. An alternative to the regulation would be to continue and increase the current fire safety education programs. Encourage consumers to buy smoke detectors, which are approximately 85% effective in giving the first alert of a home fire. Consumers should look for the UFAC gold tag on furniture. If this tag appears on a piece of furniture it means that it has been manufactured to resist smoldering cigarettes.
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