To make the plastics safer, they are treated with chemicals that stop it burning. But some people are worried that these chemicals are poisoning people, and giving us toxic food.


JONATHAN HARLEY: In this consumer's paradise, polymers or plastics encase everything from TVs to PCs and fill out couches and mattresses.

Cheap mouldable strong or soft, polymers have been a modern wonder material. They're everywhere. And only now are we learning that they harbour a serious toxic threat.

On their own, plastics catch fire very easily. To stop that, they're treated with fire retardants. And those chemicals, thought to be safe and dormant, are where the problem is presenting.

DR MARIANN LLOYD-SMITH, COORDINATOR, NATIONAL TOXICS NETWORK: They basically contaminate every aspect of our life. We are living in a toxic home.

MICHAEL CATCHPOLE, CEO, PLASTICS & CHEMICALS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: Much of our technology today, whether it be computers or motor cars, or many other things, including many health products, would be much less safe in terms of fire safety without the use of flame retardants.

JONATHAN HARLEY: The chemicals are keeping countless household goods safe from fire, but at what risk? Well, it's emerging that they're likely to be carcinogenic and could pose a serious threat to childhood development. Creeping out of their plastic base into the household environment, and most alarming of all, into breast milk.

DR MARGARET HARTLEY, DIRECTOR, COMMONWEALTH CHEMICALS REGULATOR: Certainly, everybody is concerned about having chemicals in breast milk. They prefer them not to have any. Our whole aim in regulation is to make sure chemicals don't wind up in the breast milk. And if they happen to be there, we get them out of it.

JONATHAN HARLEY: In much the same way we don't know what levels of PBDEs are finding their way into our systems, we also don't know the magnitude of the problem in the food bound for our tables. Research on that is only just beginning. And landing the odd frightening figure. One sample of pork bought straight from a supermarket shelf revealed some of the highest levels in the world. Astoundingly more than 1,000 times higher than levels in Australian breast milk

Even as manufacturers slowly move towards safer fire retardants, the mountains of discarded contaminated products like old computers steadily rise. Too toxic to take to the tip, it's not clear how these PCs will be disposed of safely.

DR BOB SYMONS: That's another important question, is the life cycle of these products.

A lot of people will not throw out their televisions or computers just because of these compounds. So we're going to be faced with the presence of these flame retardants for a long, long time.

JONATHAN HARLEY: These little-known, but common chemicals still have a long life ahead of them.