The last 6 years of fighting for safe, chemical-free furniture has shown me that for all intents and purposes the government and civil service in this country are fundamentally corrupt. Essentially, they serve business interests, even when these inflict huge harm on health and the environment, before they protect the public.
Examples are everywhere. The Grenfell Tower fire happened over 3 years ago when at least 72 people died awful deaths and hundreds more now have poor health as a result. Yet so far no answers have been provided and no one has been prosecuted. Which is no great surprise when, as detailed elsewhere on this site, the official Inquiry was taken over from the outset by industry and its bribed experts and scientists.
Another example: incinerators around the country are burning millions of old sofas and mattresses but do not have the capacity to neutralise the massive amounts of flame retardant chemicals they contain. In addition, there are regular fires at incinerators where further huge volumes of toxic material are also released into the environment. Councils turn a blind eye mainly because they need toxic waste to be "dealt with" and do not want to spend any more money than they have to on the process. The Environment Agency, too, turns a blind eye, even though it knows this illicit toxic waste is in breach of the Stockholm Convention. I challenged an official at the EA about this recently and he admitted this is true, his response being, "But what else can we do?"
This corruption also means there is a huge cost to our bank accounts. Let's for example look at furniture.
At the end of summer 2014, a consultation by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (now BEIS) closed and the results were being discussed by the group of civil servants responsible. In short, the consultation was for a new match (ignition) test for the UK's Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988. The new test would do two things: hugely reduce the use of toxic flame retardants in our sofas and mattresses (leading soon to their elimination altogether) and, believe it or not, actually make the Regulations work (the consultation provided the proof that they do not).
But the changes did not go ahead. One of those civil servants had been got at by the flame retardant industry and he made sure the process was delayed and delayed, with the result that 6 years on they still have not been introduced. The UK is now stuck with fire safety regulations that do not provide anything by way of safety, just around 150m kgs of flame retardants going into UK homes every year.
I hope he was well rewarded because his actions have provided the chemical industry with at least £300m a year that they would have otherwise lost. But there is also a cost to the public. Flame retardant treatment of sofas and mattresses is not cheap and the costs are passed on to the consumer. At a rough estimate, the UK public has had to stump up around £3bn for flame retardant treatment that should not have been necessary; and if the further elimination of FRs had gone ahead as planned, this figure is likely closer to £5bn. That's the cost of corruption by just one civil servant at exactly the right moment. Oh and by the way he sings in his church choir.
Examples are everywhere. The Grenfell Tower fire happened over 3 years ago when at least 72 people died awful deaths and hundreds more now have poor health as a result. Yet so far no answers have been provided and no one has been prosecuted. Which is no great surprise when, as detailed elsewhere on this site, the official Inquiry was taken over from the outset by industry and its bribed experts and scientists.
Another example: incinerators around the country are burning millions of old sofas and mattresses but do not have the capacity to neutralise the massive amounts of flame retardant chemicals they contain. In addition, there are regular fires at incinerators where further huge volumes of toxic material are also released into the environment. Councils turn a blind eye mainly because they need toxic waste to be "dealt with" and do not want to spend any more money than they have to on the process. The Environment Agency, too, turns a blind eye, even though it knows this illicit toxic waste is in breach of the Stockholm Convention. I challenged an official at the EA about this recently and he admitted this is true, his response being, "But what else can we do?"
This corruption also means there is a huge cost to our bank accounts. Let's for example look at furniture.
At the end of summer 2014, a consultation by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (now BEIS) closed and the results were being discussed by the group of civil servants responsible. In short, the consultation was for a new match (ignition) test for the UK's Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988. The new test would do two things: hugely reduce the use of toxic flame retardants in our sofas and mattresses (leading soon to their elimination altogether) and, believe it or not, actually make the Regulations work (the consultation provided the proof that they do not).
But the changes did not go ahead. One of those civil servants had been got at by the flame retardant industry and he made sure the process was delayed and delayed, with the result that 6 years on they still have not been introduced. The UK is now stuck with fire safety regulations that do not provide anything by way of safety, just around 150m kgs of flame retardants going into UK homes every year.
I hope he was well rewarded because his actions have provided the chemical industry with at least £300m a year that they would have otherwise lost. But there is also a cost to the public. Flame retardant treatment of sofas and mattresses is not cheap and the costs are passed on to the consumer. At a rough estimate, the UK public has had to stump up around £3bn for flame retardant treatment that should not have been necessary; and if the further elimination of FRs had gone ahead as planned, this figure is likely closer to £5bn. That's the cost of corruption by just one civil servant at exactly the right moment. Oh and by the way he sings in his church choir.
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