In a new study, researchers found that harmful flame retardants may be lurking on your hands and cell phone.
They found that halogenated flame retardants added to plastic TV cases can move from the TV to indoor air and dust, to hands, and then to cell phones and other hand-held electronic devices.
Once on the cell phone, that surface provides an ongoing source of exposure to these chemicals each time a person touches his/her cell phone.
Washing hands carefully may help protect against these flame retardants.
The research was conducted by a team at the University of Toronto.
Halogenated flame retardants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, are known to pose a health risk to children.
Previous studies have found that exposure to these chemicals can cause lower IQ in children and behavioral problems.
In the study, the team was surprised to find higher levels of almost all halogenated flame retardants, all organophosphate flame retardants, and phthalate plasticizers on the surfaces of cell phones and other hand-held electronic devices like tablets, compared to non-hand-held devices like desktop computers.
This included finding higher levels of long-banned polybrominated diphenyl ethers on new cell phones than on the surfaces of older desktop computers.
The researchers suggest that these old chemicals got to the new phones by transfer from hands.
Why are TVs a source of flame retardants? The answer lies in the odd story of old “instant-on” cathode ray tube TVs manufactured in the 1970s.
This technology, which involved warming the cathode ray tube so that the TV would immediately project an image when turned on, resulted in several hundred TV fires in the 1970s.
The response was to recommend flammability standards that led to large amounts of flame retardants added to the outside casings of the TVs.
However, those same levels of flame retardants continued to be used —as much as a quarter of the weight of the plastic case— even after the industry moved to current TVs that pose a minimal fire risk.
Thus, recently manufactured TVs contain high levels of unnecessary and harmful flame retardants.
People are exposed because the flame retardants are not bonded to the cases, but escape over time to contaminate our indoor environments.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taught people to wash our hands regularly and well to avoid getting ill. The results of this study suggest that frequent hand-washing can also reduce exposure to harmful flame retardants.
One author of the study is Miriam Diamond, a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences.
The study is published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
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