As the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, displaced Gulf Coast residents temporarily housed in about 140,000 travel trailers are still discovering the health effects of elevated formaldehyde levels within the homes. Hundreds of residents have reported acute to severe respiratory problems, and a few have blamed high formaldehyde levels for a family member's death. Hearings before the House Oversight Committee have led to disputes as to whether the faulty trailers--15,000 of which were still occupied, as of mid-July--are the responsibility of the government or of the companies that manufactured them. The question in the mind of many consumers remains: How did all that formaldehyde get into trailers in the first place?
More than 20 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that formaldehyde can cause acute respiratory problems and can be a probable carcinogen. The chemical is used in the glue that binds together the wood fragments in plywood, particleboard and medium-density fiberboard (MDF). It is a volatile organic compound (VOC), which, when breathed in high concentrations, can cause asthmalike respiratory problems. Despite both voluntary and mandatory restrictions in the amount of formaldehyde used in composite panels produced domestically, there remains little oversight or regulation of panels found in furniture and cabinetry manufactured abroad.
In the average stick-built home (or the average trailer, for that matter) ambient formaldehyde levels hover around10 to 20 parts per billion (ppb), the level typically found in healthy outdoor air. The panels in most cabinetry and furniture emit formaldehyde (also called off-gassing) slowly and continuously at all times. But most never reach the 77-ppb average (or 590-ppb high) measured in the FEMA trailers. Because formaldehyde is used in everything from cabinets to carpets, it's difficult to isolate or eliminate the offending items from your own house. The CDC's advice to concerned homeowners is the same tip they gave the Katrina refugees: ventilate.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) intends to prevent such elevated levels from being found in the future. In spring 2009, CARB will begin to enforce new criteria for acceptable levels of formaldehyde emissions from a host of wood-based products.New products will be evaluated by the independent Composite Panel Association (CPA). This development, however, comes too late for the occupants of FEMA trailers, many of whom have already suffered the effects of overexposure. The industry maintains that their cases are isolated incidents.
"The situation with the FEMA trailers is certainly unfortunate but is in no way considered normal," says Curt Alt, a vice president of marketing for the CPA. "The convergence of very little ventilation, a very small space and a hot, humid climate--all of those factors contribute to the problems we're seeing." (Off-gassing is more pronounced at higher temperatures.)
Increased awareness, combined with the new CARB standards, should reduce the likelihood that new American-made panels will contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde. In the 30 years since the CPA has been monitoring the VOCs of composite panel glues, the agency has overseen an 80 percent reduction in the amount of VOCs off-gassed from a typical panel, Alt says. Prior to Katrina, "the CPA was already well on the way to voluntary reductions of formaldehyde," he says. Improved resin binders should bring the reduction up to 95 percent by the time CARB's second phase is implemented from 2010 to 2012.
Individual manufacturers have responded as well. "There's been quite a lot of additional scrutiny on formaldehyde lately, due to the FEMA situation and due to the state of California's activity with the CARB regulation," says T.J. Rosengarth, a chief operating officer at Flakeboard, North America's largest producer of particleboard.
Flakeboard sees an emerging market for its new product, Vesta, an MDF panel with no-added-urea formaldehyde, or no-added U-F. Vesta eliminates urea from its melamine resin, thus minimizing the potential for respiratory problems. Vesta substitutes urea with phenol-formaldehyde, an alternative often described as no-added U-F, which emits formaldehyde at a slower, less harmful rate. No-added U-F formulas from Roseburg, another major panel manufacturer, include SkyBlend particleboard and SkyPly plywood.
One completely formaldehyde-free alternative is Columbia Forest Products' PureBond plywood, a hardwood panel that uses a soy-based adhesive instead of formaldehyde. This was a niche product when the nontoxic kitchen design firm Pure Kitchen began using it 10 years ago. Since then, owner Sergei Hasegawa says the item has moved more mainstream. "My cabinet fabricator is switching exclusively to Purebond," says Hasegawa, whose company also uses Uniboard's formaldehyde-free Nu-Green particleboard.
More alternatives to formaldehyde-based products can be found on the CPA's first published list of CARB-compliant manufacturers. Alt says the list of approved manufacturers grows longer almost every day. He expects the "overwhelming majority" of North American manufacturers to be compliant by the end of the summer.
Unregulated imports--which, according to the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association made up about 65% of the 3.2 billion sq. ft. of U.S. Interior decorative plywood panel sales in 2007--are another story. The CARB regulations will prevent any products in violation, whether produced domestically or abroad, from entering the state of California. But unless the EPA adopts CARB's rules as a national standard, panels, cabinetry and furniture manufactured with little oversight will continue to find a way into American houses.
In the meantime, FEMA has developed new procedures to test temporary housing. It's a good plan, given that the 2008 hurricane season is well under way.