Conclusions: need for action
Adrian Beard, pinfa Vice-Chairman (Clariant), summarised the workshop discussions. Further research and action is needed in the following areas:
- Need for better fire statistics, both to have reliable and comparable data on fire fatalities, injuries and costs, and to identify the causes of fires and actions which can reduce causalities
- Assess the respective roles of flame retardants and other passive and active fire protection measures
- Improve understanding of the health and environmental impacts of flame retardants, in particular concerning the indoor environment (air and dust)
- Innovation in PIN flame retardants, to continue to improve the current industry portfolio of products, including health and environment profile, cost, functionalities
- In particular, further develop PIN flame retardant solutions for bio-based materials, produce bio-based PIN flame retardants
- Ensure that PIN flame retardants are compatible with materials recycling
pinfa is committed to contribute to move these objectives forward, both within the PIN flame retardant and user industries, and in dialogue with stakeholders and regulators.
Summary of pinfa-NA workshop on “Flammability Requirements in Construction”, April 2015, see pinfa Newsletter n° 55 Summary of pinfa-NA workshop on “Fire safety for aviation”, April 2013, see pinfa Newsletter n° 40 Summary of pinfa workshop on “Building the future for flame retardants in E&E”, June 2010, see pinfa Newsletter n° 4 Photos of workshop: www.burning-questions.eu/2015-11_pinfa_BC