Buying a Car Seat is Already Confusing Enough
Tell Graco to make the decision easier by removing flame retardants
When shopping for a car seat, the decision should be all about what is safest for your baby and what works for your family. You shouldn’t have to worry about what chemicals are hiding in the car seat, too.
While legislation has passed to get flame retardants out of children’s products, that doesn’t apply in the same way to car seats. That’s because car seats must comply with federal motor vehicle safety standards 302 (FMVSS 302), which is about the ability of items within cars to withstand fire for longer periods of time for safety reasons during a crash.
While not catching on fire during a car crash is important, especially if your child is strapped into the car seat, there are other ways to assure fire safety without using flame retardant chemicals. In many cases even firefighters have said they don’t make the difference people hope they do. The chemicals are known to be associated with reproductive system harm, obesity, and cancer. When a product catches on fire, the flame retardants also tend to make the smoke worse and more dangerous.
So, knowing all of this, if flame retardants are one more thing you don’t want to have to check when you are buying a car seat for your kid, sign this petition telling Graco to lead the pack and take flame retardants out of their car seats. It only takes a second, and if enough people ban together, can lead to big change. Think about signing even if you don’t have kids yet. You don’t want them to be scrambling to change their practices when you start growing your own family. You want to know they have been the leader for a long time.
If a large brand like Graco can get flame retardants out of their products, hopefully it will inspire other companies to follow suit. We already know it will make car seat shopping easier.