GT5

The Detroit News reports: Study finds toxic threat in auto interiors. Man, just when we thought we could chill out in our car and not die. Why does everything have to be so difficult? Oh, we’re not saying this report is wrong or anything; we’d just rather not know that sitting in our car was going to kill us.

“They could create a legacy like PCBs,” Gearhart said of the flame retardant BDE, referring to a now-banned toxic chemical that found its way up the food chain. “They have all the lineage of that type of environmental disaster. We think the writing is on the wall. The smart people within the auto industry know that.”

The Ecology Center cited Ford subsidiary Volvo Car Corp. as an industry leader in following a policy to reduce flame-retardant chemicals as concern has grown in Europe. Volvo and other well-performing companies prove the feasibility of providing safer alternatives, Gearhart said. (continue reading…)