Editor’s note: This is part of a package on furniture fires and couch burnings. Read about new legislation cracking down on individuals who intentionally set fires. Also check out what students think about penalties for crimes related to furniture fires.
Through victory or defeat, in celebration or in anger, one tradition has embedded itself within college sports: burning couches.
Criminal charges aside, many who burn furniture aren’t aware of the health implications the act can have on themselves or the environment. Couches and other furniture contain a host of harmful materials which produce toxic smoke when burned, civil and environmental engineering professor Venkatesh Kodur said.
“(These) toxic substances, when they come out, air quality will go down because of the burning,” Kodur said. “It depends upon the quantity and how much plastics are being burned, but for sure these plastics are much worse than any other burning because they have a lot of carcinogenic substances.”
Burning common couch materials causes other health problems. Polyurethane foam, used as padding for many couches, can release chemicals known as isocyanates when burned. These chemicals can cause severe irritation to the lungs, which can develop into asthma or a host of other problems in instances of prolonged exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Horticulture freshman Sean Reed has burned furniture in the backyard of his parents’ home in Illinois.
“We have a giant bonfire pit, so we just put (the furniture) all in there and put some tinder on top of it,” Reed said. “It was like pitch black smoke. I don’t think it was very healthy. Whatever was inside that couch, we should not have burned it.”
The majority of couches of in America also contain flame retardants, according to a study published November 2012 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, with 85 percent of couches sampled containing a form of flame retardant.
A study published in the journal Chemosphere this February found firefighters exposed to certain flame retardants burned during fires were at a significantly higher risk of cancer and other health problems than the general population.
There are options to get rid of that unwanted sofa other than sending it up in flames after the next big game. Furniture can be posted for sale in online marketplaces such as Craigslist, and the city of East Lansing has listed several local charities on its website that accept donations of used furniture including Goodwill Industries International, Inc. and Volunteers of America.
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