With less than a month remaining now until the new Flame Retradant Rule (16 CFR 1633) takes effect, manufacturers are scrambling to become compliant in time.  Nationally, all burn testing labs are booked solid through June, so if someone hasn't scheduled yet, they are out of luck!

Already, the misinformation has begun.  I was contacted just this morning by a local chiropractor that received a medical bulletin regarding the new rule which stated "There is currently no natural alternative that will pass the new test."  While technically this may be true, it is only true for the standard mattress segment - here's why:

Standard mattresses, which are in more than 90% of American homes, contain large amounts of polyurethane foams.  The new "memory foam" craze and emphasis on luxury and specialty mattresses has actually INCREASED, in many cases by more than 30 times, the amount of polyurethane foam products that are placed in mattresses over the past 5 years.  Since polyurethane foam products, including "memory foam" are petro-chemically based, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that these materials are highly combustable.  In the mattress business, the amount of material used in a mattress is called "fuel load", so you can imagine that a giant pillowtop or thick "memory foam" mattress is going to have one whale of a fuel load!

Under those circumstances, not even mother nature can keep the flame from the prescribed blow-torch away from the polyurethane material.  No amount of pure wool is going to keep it from catching fire and burning up.  Thus, and you can take this to the bank, if you have a mattress with a high fuel load, you're going to have a really thick, and probably highly chemically based, flame barrier installed just under the outer fabric.

NOT THE CASE for natural and organic mattresses!!  The reason is that these mattresses do not contain ANY polyurethane foam products.  Cotton and Natural Latex (and I mean NATURAL, no synthetic blend) are not anywhere close to being as flamable as polyurethane foams, plus they do not "flash" (rapid acceleration of fire) like a standard mattress will when it catches fire.  With this much lower fuel load, even in big - thick pillowtops, wool quilting is sufficient to pass the test, keep the flame out and provide consumers with a nice alternative to sleeping on a ton of potentially toxic chemcials.

Consider this:  Scott and Steve Carwile of Vivetique Sleep Systems (The Natural Bedroom) in California - who have been dealing with a mattress flamability standard in that state since 2005 - have constructed their own burn testing area and found that, even when using organic cotton thread and binding tape, the Pure Grow Wool they place in their mattresses is sufficient to pass the new test and show that these mattresses are compliant with the new regulation. 

"We've burned a lot of mattresses!" said Scott Carwile of Vivetique.  "The wool is our flame barrier."

On the standard mattress front, I wanted to track down who had worked with every chemically based F/R material out there.  I contacted Dave Turner, who is probably one of the most respected mattress manufacturing managers in the western United States.  He has worked for Bassett Bedding, Northwest Bedding and Restonic and knows more about making mattresses than just about anybody in the business.  Dave currently manages the Washington factory for The Mattress Factory, Inc.  He has sampled, quilted and actually made finished standard mattresses out of every single F/R barrier available.

"We've had some stuff that was just plain awful!" comments Turner.  "We ran it through the quilter and there was so much dust in the air, the operators had to wear masks and glasses for protection.  Some of it actually began falling apart as it went through the machinery."

Apart from finding out what the worst stuff was, he did find out what the best F/R material is. 

"No doubt, Milliken." says Dave.  "It has a natural componant, doesn't create a bunch of dust and quilts up straight and smooth.  It's definately the most benign F/R barrier available at this moment."

If no organic or natural mattress is available to you (which is still by far the better option), then look for a standard mattress that uses the Milliken F/R barrier.  The manufacturer of the F/R barrier used in mattresses is supposed to be readily available to the consumer (although the ingredients of the barrier are definately not), so finding out this information should not be too difficult.

On another note, the zeal of Homeland Security is starting to rear it's ugly head on imported organic mattresses.  One report has surfaced of a shipment of Green Sleep mattresses (quite probably the very best organic bed made in the world), held up at the Canadian boarder by Homeland Security!  Amazingly, they will let someone with the most contagious form of TB travel the world, but will keep the healthiest sleep system in the world from entering the country.  Just our government trying to keep us safe!

Until next time...

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