September 22, 2015 – Researchers and government agencies have found that vinyl bean bag covers and foam bean bag filling are associated with various forms of cancer, and they must carry warning labels when sold in California.

Bean Bags R Us recently completed a meta-analytic research project showing that vinyl bean bag covers and memory foam chunks used as bean bag filling pose significant health risks to children and adults. The research reveals a strong correlation between people who spend time around bean bags with vinyl covers and bean bag filling comprised of memory foam blocks and increased rates of cancer and birth defects. Because of this threat, officials in California are now requiring all manufacturers and distributors to affix Proposition 65 warning labels to all such products being sold in the state.

Several medical studies conducted within the past decade have determined that when vinyl is used as a fabric, it may pose several serious health risks. The first problem with vinyl is that it off-gasses vinyl chloride, a colorless gas that has long been associated with numerous illnesses, long-term medical conditions and terminal diseases. When people inhale vinyl chloride, they may experience one or more of the following side effects:

When exposure to vinyl chloride increases over time, the risk of developing a serious medical condition also increases, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified this compound as a Group A human carcinogen. A few of the conditions caused by vinyl chloride exposure are as follows:

Another problem with textile-grade vinyl is that it is treated with other chemicals to maximize its pliability and elasticity. One of these chemicals is a plasticizer by the name of diisononyl phthalate (DiNP). DiNP prevents vinyl fabric from cracking by increasing its suppleness, but medical researchers have determined that excessive exposure to this compound may cause one or more serious types of cancer, including liver cancer, bone cancer, blood cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and uterine cancer.

In December 2013, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) in California concluded that DiNP meets all of the conditions for inclusion in the list of substances covered by Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. This list now includes more than 900 compounds that can only be sold within the state when accompanied by a health-warning label that reads as follows:

“WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.”

All of the substances on the Proposition 65 list have been found to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive problems in at least one out of every 100,000 people.

In addition to the health risks imposed by vinyl bean bag covers, consumers are warned to avoid bean bags with filling made of memory foam. Many of these cheap bean bags are filled with chunks of memory foam rather than virgin EPS beads. Unlike EPS beads, memory foam off-gasses several different chemicals that are harmful to human health:

About Bean Bags R Us
Bean Bags R Us was founded in September 2011 with the mission of offering high-quality bean bags and bean bag furniture that cannot be found in other stores. The company maintains a large and loyal customer base by providing excellent customer service and products that have been tested to meet the highest standards of comfort, practicality and aesthetic design.

All of the bean bags sold by Bean Bags R Us include covers made of durable, high-quality nylon or polyester. Inferior vinyl bean bags are never handled by the company nor are they ever made available for sale. In addition, Bean Bags R Us uses only virgin EPS bean bag beads to fill its bean bag furniture, and the company does not support the use of memory foam in its products.

For further information on the possible toxicity of vinyl and memory foam bean bags, visit the Bean Bags R Us Australian blog.

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Geoff Brand
Bean Bags R Us

http://www.beanbagsrus.com.au/blog/bean-bags-toxic/

Release ID: 239456

SYDNEY, Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company released a study revealing IT departments across Australia and New Zealand are spending big on redundant technology. Added pressure from the boardroom, poor ROI and outsourcing experiences are also key themes contained in the research from Rackspace.

A total of 252 IT decision makers across Australia and New Zealand participated in the survey, which was conducted by deciBel Research. The survey revealed that one in ten (10%) companies wasted over $100,000 a year on redundant IT, 13% wasted $50,000 – $99,999, and 25% wasted $10,000 – $49,999.

Boardroom pressure, release issues and poor hires
43% of surveyed IT decisions makers have experienced executive pressure to implement technology, even though they personally believed it was too risky for the business.

On top of this, almost half (45%) of medium[1] and 38% of large[2] surveyed businesses have released a version of software to the wider business/consumer that has caused issues.

It’s not just the technology that is under performing. More than half (54%) of all surveyed businesses, and three quarters (77%) of medium sized* surveyed organisations have employed a member of staff in the IT team, only to realise after the fact, that they were a bad hire.

Technology not delivering on a promise
Almost three quarters (73%) of survey respondents reported making a poor purchasing decision, with:

In fact, poor purchasing decisions are more prevalent than ever. 45% of survey respondents believed they were more likely to make a poor technology decision now, than they were ten years ago. This belief is even higher in Queensland, with 59% of surveyed decision makers fearing this is more common than in the past decade.

“In a crowded market where new technologies are released at such a rapid rate, the modern day choice has become less black and white than it was a decade ago,” said Angus Dorney, Director and General Manager at Rackspace ANZ.

“It can be difficult to forecast if a purchase is going to deliver on its promise to provide your business with sufficient ROI. In some cases, this research shows that a lot of technology is purchased and never used.”

More than 41% of the surveyed IT decision makers polled have been responsible for purchasing or implementing technology that has not been used within their organisation. This happens more frequently in Victoria than any other State, where the figure is 51%.

“In our experience, helping to ensure you’re making the right choices when it comes to technology can come down to doing your research, taking the time to do an in-depth comparison of the available offerings and consulting reputable and experienced providers,” continued Dorney.

“If you do the ground work, you’re more likely to have the foundation you need for a swift and seamless implementation, selecting the right technology for your business needs.”

Outsourcing experience
Outsourcing provides an economical solution for many businesses when it comes to running critical technology outside of the team’s capabilities. However, not all third parties are providing the levels of customer service and output expected by their clients.

More than half (57%) of survey respondents have had a negative outsourcing experience from an IT service provider. The top reasons for re-thinking an outsourcing policy include:

1. The service was badly managed (48%)
2. Moving to a different provider (41%)
3. The service continually went down (31%)
4. There were security concerns (31%)

When selecting an outsourcing service, creating a trusted relationship with the service provider is vital to ensure that you’re business critical applications will be running in a solution that meets today’s needs and tomorrow’s growth.

“Prior to Rackspace, our hosting provider had become a ticking time-bomb, we had an urgent need to migrate and needed to look into a cloud solution immediately. We needed a provider who could guarantee uptime, stability, page load speed and scalability,” said Daniel Wright, Chief Digital Officer, Tyreright.

“Before we’d even formally become a customer of Rackspace, I was receiving Fanatical Support. It’s very reassuring, you gain trust quickly, because they know what they are doing and they take the time to deliver the best possible solution.”

Lessons from the let downs
Teams are however learning from these mishaps, using them to shape their purchasing choices in the future. Almost nine out of ten (88%) of survey respondents report having learned important lessons from regretful decisions.

These include:

Rackspace commissioned an independent online market research company called deciBel Research to undertake this piece of research. 252 IT decision makers from Australia and New Zealand were interviewed throughout August 2015.

About Rackspace
Rackspace (NYSE: RAX), the #1 managed cloud company, helps businesses tap the power of cloud computing without the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructure and application platforms on their own. Rackspace engineers deliver specialised expertise on top of leading technologies developed by OpenStack, Microsoft, VMware and others, through a results-obsessed service known as Fanatical Support®. The company has more than 300,000 customers worldwide, including two-thirds of the FORTUNE 100. Rackspace was named a leader in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, and has been honored as one of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For in six of the past eight years. For more information, visit www.rackspace.com/en-au.

Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If such risks or uncertainties materialize or such assumptions prove incorrect, the results of Rackspace Hosting could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and assumptions. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including any statements about Rackspace survey results that may suggest trends for the industry; any statements relating to expected or predicted behaviors of consumers and the impact of cloud computing; any statements concerning expected development, performance or operational results related to any particular customer or customers of our customers associated with our hosting solutions; any other statements of expectation or belief directly relating to Rackspace business derived from the survey results; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. Risks, uncertainties and assumptions include a substantial margin of error in the survey results, inconsistencies in respondent’s understanding and Rackspace’s analysis of survey questions and results, the possibility that expected benefits from any shift in consumer behavior may not materialize as expected; the achievement of expected operational results from any shift in consumer behavior; changes in the economy, technological and competitive factors, regulatory factors ; and other risks that are described in Rackspace Hosting’s Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2015, filed with the SEC on August 10, 2015. Except as required by law, Rackspace Hosting assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

[1]
Businesses with 50-200 employees
[2]
Businesses with more than 200 employees
Media Contact

Dan Bleakman
dan@thefactuary.com.au

Joanne Schofield
joanne.schofield@rackspace.com

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Dan Bleakman
Rackspace

http://www.rackspace.com/en-au/

Release ID: 239276