Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to ensure compliance with the Stockholm Convention by ensuring disposal of furniture containing flame retardant chemicals safely at end-life.

The Stockholm Convention bans or restricts the use of persistent organic pollutant chemicals (POPs) that are toxic, persist in the environment, bio-accumulate in humans and animals and have long-ranging properties. The Convention has banned some chemicals that have historically been used as flame retardants in soft furnishings and the UK has supported this action.

The waste industry has a legal requirement to destroy POPs that are in articles such as soft furnishings and this is achieved if they are incinerated at the correct temperature. We have recently completed a study to better understand the use of Decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) and Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD), which were the most commonly used flame retardants in soft furnishings before they were banned. We will now work with the waste industry to use this information to recognise where soft furnishings are likely to contain POPs, thereby ensuring disposal processes destroy the banned flame retardants.