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chemicals in tents

chemicals in tents


Postby yourname » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:17 pm

Hello!

After about a week of carefully choosing my future tent, I was just about to leave to go and buy it (either the MSR elixir orthe LSR hubba hubba), and then I noticed a wee comment that these tents contain products linked to cancer.

After looking a bit on the internet, it seems to be fire retardants that are used on the tents that cause the problem, but people seem to take it more or less seriously given that we are probably surrounded by these chemicals every day.

It seems to be a US thing. Has anyone looked inot this and can tell me if european brands use these chemicals too? If there is a magic brand that doesnt use these chemicals? If the whole thing is a wee bit blown out of proportion.?
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby Backpacker » Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:55 pm

Is it the California Law?

They have to list everything and I mean everything that could potentially cause cancer
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby Marty_JG » Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:30 pm

Watch this for some info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)

Your sofa? Leaking cancer causing chemicals into you. Your bed? Leaking cancer causing chemicals into you. Any Teflon you have in your house? Leaking cancer causing chemicals into you.

The Californian legislation obliges manufacturers to mention this now. Oh, and the risks are far from trivial. Sleep tight!!
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby Skyelines » Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:37 pm

Unless you plan to eat your tent or grind it up and snort it, I'm not sure I can see a problem.
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby Marty_JG » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:16 pm

The chemicals leech out, into dust, and you ingest that dust.

It might not be much of an issue for your tent but it's a big issue inside your house unless your house is dust-free.
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby davekeiller » Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:46 pm

It doesn't pay to look too closely at the very long list of things that can apparently cause cancer.

Whilst many of these things *can* cause cancer, you generally need to be exposed to serious quantities over many years to have a detectable increase in your cancer risk.

I suspect that in the case of a tent, the chemicals are to be found in the surface coatings, and unless you're planning to scrape the surface off and eat it you won't get a measurable exposure.

It's also worth bearing in mind that some of the classifications aren't so much "this causes cancer" as "we can't definitely prove that it doesn't".

It's also worth remembering that your lifetime risk of cancer is about 40%, and the increased cancer risk from a tent is probably much less than the risk of living in Aberdeen rather than Glasgow (the geology on the East coast is slightly radioactive).
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby matt_outandabout » Mon Feb 15, 2021 12:39 pm

You should be more worried about the tin box on wheels stuffed with plastics, chemicals and burning fossil fuels while firing rubber particles at everyone that you use to get to the hills.
And let's not worry about matresses, paint, plastic kitchen cabinets, glues in carpets, anti-rot wood treatments and more that our houses are stuffed with - then sealed up and heated gently. Most babies nurseries are more polluted than a city street - as we all go and buy shiny new things for them.

Life will kill you eventually.
Will you do it sat in your house or in a tent somewhere magical?
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby NeilNS » Wed Mar 03, 2021 9:57 pm

I think everyone has covered most of the harmful things, not wanting to scare you but the 3000ft of granite you will be walking on and sleeping on is radioactive, so don't fret about the tent :D
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby Sgurr » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:07 pm

At one point Gulf War syndrome was thought to be cause by tents....namely the insecticide that was sprayed on them. Now they have decided it was more likely caused by nerve agents in Saddam Hussein's ammo dumps that the soldiers blew up. Does anyone know why they don't make tents out of goretex where all the rain-proofing appears to be done by the fabric weave? Maybe it doesn't protect against fire enough
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby AyrshireAlps » Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:07 pm

I think GoreTex needs a decent temperature differential to work properly, so it would possibly be a bit of a condensation nightmare, as there isn't a big differential between inside and outside of tents?.
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby matt_outandabout » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:56 pm

Does anyone know why they don't make tents out of goretex where all the rain-proofing appears to be done by the fabric weave?


It is not by the weave - like Goretex there is a membrane. Posher fabrics use silicone treatment of the individual fabric fibres rather than membrane.

Cost is the main reason it isn't in Goretex, that and a non-breathable membrane can be more waterproof and more durable when stuffed in a bag all creased up for months and months.
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Re: chemicals in tents

Postby davekeiller » Fri Mar 05, 2021 7:17 pm

I would expect that it's due to weight and durability.
Goretex is a thin PTFE membrane, which has to be bonded to textiles in order to protect it because it's very delicate. Much easier just to use non-breathable materials like nylon which will stand up to a bit of abuse.

Also, weight would likely be an issue. According to google, a typical goretex jacket weighs something like 500g. Compare the fabric area of a jacket to a tent and that suggests that you'd be talking something like 2kg for the flysheet of a small 1-2 man backpacking tent.
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