Last year there was a big change in the furniture world. A California law went into effect that allowed furniture manufacturers to make and sell upholstered furniture—such as sofas, loveseats, and chairs—without toxic fire retardants. That’s certainly good news!
The problem is that while the fire retardants are gone, most of the affordable sofas and chairs are still made with synthetic materials and toxic finishes like stain repellants.
Less toxic to be sure…but not toxic free yet.
Since January 1, 2015 the CA labeling law has required all upholstered furniture (couches, sofas, loveseats, and recliners) to have a label that states whether or not harmful flame retardant chemicals were added to the product.
I could have told you this last year but didn’t, because it only applied to upholstered furniture manufactured after January 1, 2015. Stores were still filled with furniture manufactured before this date.
Now, furniture manufactured since the beginning of 2015 is more widely available.
If you are buying upholstered furniture, what you want to look at is the “law label.”
And now I’m going to send you over to an article that has a very clear explanation of how to find the label, the three different labels you might see, and how to find the information about flame retardants—complete with pictures.
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: Want to Avoid Toxic Couch Chemicals? Just Look for New Label!
Since 2014, a free service at Duke University has been analyzing foam samples from furniture, car seats, and other products. They found 52% of all samples collected contained flame retardants. The chemicals were detected more frequently in furniture purchased before 2014, suggesting that updates to California’s furniture flammability regulation TB117 may have contributed to a decreased use of flame retardants. Results from Screening Polyurethane Foam Based Consumer Products for Flame Retardant Chemicals: Assessing Impacts on the Change in the Furniture Flammability Standards