The Australian Wood Panels Association (AWPA) has joined Australia’s biggest building union in calling on the federal government to regulate imported wood panel products for their formaldehyde content. In this May 20O8 report by Jim Bowden, the Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) is demanding an urgent large-scale investigation into formaldehyde levels in household products that are above industry standards.
The government has already confirmed up to 50 Northern Territory intervention staff and police officers were recently exposed to concerning levels of the substance in the converted shipping containers they were living in for six months.
In 2005, the AWPA tested a range of foreign products and found one beechwood wall panel registered formaldehyde levels almost 18 times above the Australian standard.
Australian manufacturers comply with voluntary regulations that restrict the level of formaldehyde, but those rules do not apply for wood panelling manufactured elsewhere.
“Users of wood panels must insist on certified products with the formaldehyde classification stamped on panels or pack labels,” says AWPA executive director Bruce Steenson.
“All Australian-made particleboard and medium density fibreboard (MDF) is certified to comply with all the requirements of relevant Australian standards. These Australian standards cover properties important to fabricators and consumers – dimensions, strength and durability and formaldehyde emission.”
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is reviewing formaldehyde levels in various products.
Imported building products with dangerously high levels of formaldehyde well above industry standards are a growing concern in Australia.
Recently, underlayment plywoods imported from Asia failed tests for stability, lyctid susceptibility and accepted formaldehyde levels.
Random samples of plywood sheets obtained on the open market by the Engineered Wood Products Association of Australasia (EWPAA) were unlabelled for grade, bond type and formaldehyde emission class and there was no indication of the manufacturer or exact country of origin.
But the formaldehyde content of the samples is a much bigger issue; they were linked to the condemning by the US of 35,000 trailers built as emergency housing after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Core veneer species used in the manufacture of the underlayment plywood imported into Australia have been identified by the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries as Populus spp, a low-density hardwood frequently used by Chinese plywood manufacturers
Test results on these products showed formaldehyde emissions were extremely high (4.8 mg/ L). Of greater concern was the fact that the emission class was not labelled on the panel to identify it as a high emission product.
Australian plywood standards require labelling of formaldehyde emissions. Every plywood sheet complying with these standards must be labelled with the formaldehyde emission class.
The EWPAA laboratory tests formaldehyde emissions from all certified products manufactured in the Australasian region. All EWPAA-certified structural plywood and Type A bond exterior plywood have an emission class of E0 with a maximum emission of 0.50 mg/L. In fact, the average formaldehyde emission for all structural and Type A exterior plywood products produced by EWPAA certified mills is only 0.26mg/L or half the permitted level and approximate to the natural formaldehyde emission from timber.
