Brominated flame retardants to be banned after all

. Cath Miller, who works for Dr Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MEP for the South East of England has just written to inform us that: “I have now heard back from the advisers in the European Parliament and can tell you that the Commission was stopped from excluding DecaBDE [Decabromodiphenyl ether, another brominated flame retardant] from the ban introduced in the 2008 Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. This was following a Green initiative, which the Parliament acted upon by taking the Commission to the European Court of Justice and getting the corresponding decision on exclusion struck down. Industry is fighting to get DecaBDE reallowed – it even created a campaign called "REACHforLife” but it does not have the backing of the European Chemical Industry. “The Commission has just announced a proposal for the revision of RoHS. Greens will be leading on drafting the Parliament’s response, but, as I am sure you are aware, MEPs cannot influence the nature of the Commission’s initial proposals. The proposals will be subject to co-decision, however, and Greens will be working hard to get an even tighter ban on BFRs.” Readers should note that there are more than a few alternative flame retardants for PCBs and other polymer based materials. Concerned readers can do worse than starting their search for the best solutions on the Eureka and New Electronics websites.