Walmart has announced that, starting June 1, it will begin testing and rejecting its retail inventory for polybrominated diethyl ethers (PBDEs), heretofore used in flame retardants — even though there’s no evidence of harm, plenty of evidence of effectiveness and no government action against PBDEs. The Washington Post labeled this sort of action “retail regulation.”
Ooops! My bad. ‘PBCDE’ shoud read ‘PBDE’.
I agree with tadchem! Walmart is only protecting itself from the onerous fines that groups like the EPA and ambulance chasing lawyers will try to extract from them eventually!
This is not a scientific issue. For WalMart this is a regulatory issue involving (political) compliance. Since August 2004 PBDEs have been banned for use, manufacture, importation, or disposal within the EU,and its use in electronics has been phased out as of July 2006. http://yosemite.epa.gov/R10/ECOCOMM.NSF/columbia/workshops/$FILE/Precuationary_Principle.pdf
Since the EU politicians have already declared PBCDE to be a ‘bad’ chemical, WalMart doesn’t want it in their inventory so they don’t have to worry about the exhoritant fines each individual EU member country may ley.