Plastics also help in fire safety

Plastics, like all organic materials (wood, paper, natural textile...) are combustible in some specific conditions.  But any potential for hazard resulting from the use of a material needs to be considered on a case by case basis, depending on the use and specific surroundings.

This is particularly true in Building and Construction (B&C), the second largest market sector for plastics. To start with many plastic products in B&C have been historically assessed regarding their reaction to fire, or resistance to fire, leading to the development of testing standards and national regulatory specifications. The success of PVC, the leading polymer in the sector is largely due to its intrinsic fire safety characteristics. Other plastic types (PE, PP, EPS, PU...) are also used and sometimes need the addition of flame retardant agents.     

Advances in fire safety modelling and computing technologies now offer a new holistic approach called Fire Safety Engineering. This methodology assesses the fire behaviour of a product in different fire scenarios in a defined environment; and is being standardized at international level. Its key advantage compared to the traditional regulatory approach is to allow the flexibility to choose the most efficient combination of precautionary measures ensuring the desired level of safety. The choice of materials is only one such measure, amongst many others - such as building design, use of smoke detectors, alarms, automated fire fighting systems.  It is expected that this methodology will be introduced into regulations allowing the further use of plastics, while maintaining, or even improving, adequate overall fire safety.

Developments of plastics in public transportation (railways, metros, ships etc) have for long been restricted by the conventional approach to specifying products or materials. The need for further energy saving and CO₂ emission limitations in the sector is an opportunity for plastics, which brings light-weighting without prejudice to Fire Safety, if assessed using Fire Safety Engineering standards.

In the electrical and electronic equipment sector (EEE), where a fire can be ignited from electrical sources, flame retardants offer a large range of solutions for inhibiting ignition and are in widespread use. In most cases, a given polymer requires a specific formulation in a defined application.