38
the World Of Hospitality
beds & bedding
Fire Retardants - Friend Or Foe?
As you will know, it is the responsibility for Hotels to
ensure that furniture and mattresses meet the UK
Fire Regulations up to Contract Standard otherwise
known as Crib 5 level. Whereas a retailer who sells
to a customer is responsible for meeting the Fire
Regulations, it is solely the Hoteliers’ responsibility
to make sure that the product they are buying
meets the higher Contract regulations.
At the heart of the Fire Regulations is the Match
and Crib Test. The Department of Business have
been assessing the effectiveness of these tests.
Currently individual component materials are tested
rather than testing the finished item. When Trading
Standards check products they will test the final
product but these often fail because of the way they
are assembled and the materials used in assembly
such as inflammable adhesives and glues.
Furniture and mattress covering fabrics such as
cotton and polyester have to be back-coated with
Fire Retardant (FR) chemicals to meet the UK Fire
Regulations. Fillings such as foam also have to be
chemically treated with FR’s and amazingly up to
25% of the foam’s weight is in fact FR chemicals.
The US first introduced these fire retardant
chemicals in 1975 but in 2014 the US Fire Brigade,
due to rising cancer rates amongst their members,
and the Chicago Tribune effectively lobbied to ban
many FR chemicals.
The Question was also posed “Do these flame
retardants actually work?”. Some argue that the
FR’s reduce the burn temperature of the fire so
increasing smoke and carbon monoxide. It is also
argued that any reductions in deaths related to fires
since the introduction of the regulations are more
due to the introduc tion of smoke detectors and
sprinkler systems.
Apart from the human and animal health concerns,
there are also major environmental problems
connected with these chemicals, the most pressing
being the disposal of treated furniture. The UK is
a signatory to the Stockholm Agreement which
means that in the next few years many of these FRs
will not be able to be disposed of in landfill sites as
they are classified as Persistent Organic Pollutants
(POPs). Furniture and mattresses containing
these chemicals will have to be disposed by high
temperature incinerators of which the governments
admit, they have very few.
The answer to many of these problems may be
solved by using natural fire retardants like Wool.
One cotton mill in the north of England now
produces cotton woven with wool in a particular
patented way which passes all the regulations right
up to contract level.
They call this product “Cottonsafe®”. Its fire
protection lasts for the life of the fabric and has
none of the disposal, health or environmental
problems of the chemicals.