flame retardants in the home

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For better or worse, you'd expect to find flame retardants in couches, carpets, and electronics. They're used in strategic places to try to prevent house fires. Yet, as health concerns rise over these chemicals, the scary truth is that flame retardants don't stay put—they migrate out of consumer products and have been found in some pretty unexpected places.

Check out these 8 weird places scientists have found flame retardants:

Dust
"Toxic dust bunnies" isn't the title of a B-rated sci-fi movie, it's the stranger-than-fiction truth about the dirt lurking around your house. Dust is a common next stop for flame retardants after they jump ship from your sofa. Research published in Environmental Science & Technology found that at 36 flame retardants were found in at least half of dust samples, sometimes at concerning levels for health. TCEP and TDCIPP (or chlorinated "Tris") were the most abundant household flame retardants, found in 75 percent of homes.

Fortunately, hand washing has shown to be a great way to protect yourself from flame retardant–laced dust.

Office Workers
It's not just the dust in your home that's hurting your health—it may also be the dust in your office, according to research published in Environmental International. Working in an office was the strongest predictor of metabolized TDCPP in urine samples, especially in older offices. "Overall, our findings suggest that exposure to TDCPP in the work environment is one of the contributors to the personal exposure for office workers. Further research is needed to confirm specific exposure sources, determine the importance of exposure in other microenvironments such as homes and vehicles, and address the inhalation and dermal exposure pathways," the researchers reported.

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Hawks
The most polluted bird in the world is a Cooper's hawk found in Greater Vancouver, found by Canadian researchers. This hawk contained 196 parts per million of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PBDEs, while banned in Canada since 2000, were once commonly used as flame retardants in electronics as well as carpets, cars, and furniture.

"The levels of flame retardants in starlings, a favorite prey of hawks, which nested near the landfill site were 15 times higher than levels in starlings found elsewhere in Vancouver," says Professor Kyle Elliott, of McGill's Department of Natural Resource Sciences, one of the authors of the study.

Butter
PBDEs were discovered in samples of butter sold at five Dallas grocery stores. All the butter contained some level of contamination, but the most contaminated butter had 280 times more deca-BDE, a form of PBDE, than the cleaner samples. The wrapper had double the PBDEs than the butter itself. The researchers were unable to determine where along the processing chain the contamination occurred.

"This certainly points out that you can get toxic chemicals in your food—and every so often get really high levels—and no government agency is systematically checking or even periodically checking to see if they're there," said lead author Arnold Schecter, MD, MPH, a professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health.

More From Rodale News: The Really Gross Thing Hiding Out in Your Couch

The Air
Flame retardants are polluting our air, found Indiana University researchers. They found that TBB and TBPH, flame retardants used in electronics, plastics, and upholstery foam, in atmospheric samples collected in the Great Lakes region. "We find that the environmental concentrations of these compounds are increasing rather rapidly," said Ronald Hites, PhD, study author and professor at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "It's rare to find that concentrations of any compound are doubling within a year or two, which is what we're seeing with TBB and TBPH."

Your Pets
Flame-retardant Fido? That's what researchers at Indiana University found. Dogs have five to 10 times higher concentrations of flame retardants in their bodies, found researchers. And previous research has found that cats have 20 to 100 times higher concentrations than humans, presumably because they clean the toxic dust off their bodies with their tongues.

Farm-Raised Salmon
Super lice, DDT, chicken litter—as if you needed another reason to forgo farmed salmon, here's another. Farmed-raised salmon contains PBDEs, according to research published in Environmental Science & Technology. The researchers tested 700 samples of farmed and wild salmon and found that, with only one exception (wild Chinook), farmed salmon has much higher levels of this flame retardant than wild salmon.

Preschools
Young children make up a particularly vulnerable population, especially when it comes to exposure to endocrine disruptors. So the fact that 100 percent of dust samples from 40 daycares contained PBDEs and tris phosphate compounds is a little concerning. "These findings underscore how widespread these materials are in indoor environments," said study lead author Asa Bradman, PhD associate director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health Research at University of California Berkeley. " Children are more vulnerable to the health effects of environmental contaminants, so we should be particularly careful to reduce their exposure to harmful chemicals."

Your Soda
We weren't fans of soda to begin with, but this takes it from bad to worse. The food industry has used brominated vegetable oil (BVO) to keep artificial flavoring from separating in beverages, according to a report from Environmental Health News. Too bad that BVO is patented as a flame retardant and it's in 10 percent of U.S. sodas.

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