Concentrations of brominated flame retardants in plastics of electrical and electronic equipment, vehicle, textiles and construction : a short review of occurrence and management
Résumé
Flame retardancy is necessary to protect people and goods from fire of flammable products. Brominated flame retardants (BFR) have been successfully developed to meet fire safety requirements of many industrial and consumer products. They are frequently used with antimony trioxide as a synergist. The “first” BFRs are phased out by product and waste regulations as POP substances: polybromobiphenyls, polybromodiphenylethers, hexabromocyclododecane and tetrabromobisphenol A. The last to be restricted is decaBDE in 2017 with exemptions for some parts of electrical and electronic equipment, and automotive up to 2036. Since the mean life of a car is about 20 years, this substance will enter the recycling plants for a long time. The presence of these “legacy” substances presence (not banned at the time they were used in products but present 2 – 20… years later in waste) are really challenging for the recycling and waste management companies, who bear now the burden of the past… of others. The variety of BFR and their use in plastics is attested by the data from manufacturers. They develop new BFR, with some of them “reactive” (bound to the polymeric matrix) like brominated polystyrene. Manufacturers also propose (less effective) phosphorus-based flame retardants, as an alternative. Up till now BFR are not replaceable in printed circuit boards, which are more and more present in equipment. Numerous official reports (UNEP, consulting companies for EU) have assessed their ubiquitous presence in products, waste, house dust, car dust, air of the shredder installations, and landfill leachates. An original numerical synthesis of literature data on concentrations of BFR in (waste of) electrical and electronic equipment, automotive, tyres, furniture (upholstery, mattresses), textiles (clothing), flooring and construction material (insulation, piping, windows and doorframes) will be presented, with a focus on automotive and textiles.