Bedding Today

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is not impressing too many people in the mattress industry with its seemingly lax enforcement of the federal mattress flammability standard. And that is a shame.

The FR law, which went into effect in July 2007, was among the most expensive regulations ever enacted by the agency. It took effect after years of study and work by the mattress industry, and it forced bedding producers to develop stringent new FR quality control systems, to learn how to incorporate new FR materials into their production processes, and to meet substantial new documentation requirements. In short, the FR standard ushered in a new era in the mattress industry.

But now the CPSC is failing to live up to its end of the bargain, in the view of some bedding veterans. Having required so much of the mattress industry in creating the FR rule, CPSC now seems to be demanding too little of the industry in enforcing it.

Industry observers say they are aware of just two public mattress recalls in the two years that the FR standard has been in effect. One came last fall, when Serta said that its own routine quality testing had determined that some Serta mattresses didn’t meet the FR standard. And the second came just a few days ago when 2,700 beds made by Loyal Bedding of Miami and distributed only in Puerto Rico were recalled.

Not to minimize the importance of that latest action (all unsafe beds should be recalled, of course), but that is a very limited recall.

CPSC should be vigorously enforcing the flammability standard, which is now the law of the land. Its apparent failure to do so creates an unlevel playing field, one where cheaters have little to fear. And that is just plain unfair to those producers who have taken the FR standard seriously.