Building products don鈥檛 have to clean up their products for the British market but it is happening anyway.
Take MDF 鈥� medium-density fibreboard 鈥� whose formaldehyde content is being curtailed by the European Union.
Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring volatile organic compound present in all wood products at very low levels and is widely used in resin binders during panel manufacture to deliver strength, durability and machining performance.
Revisions to the EU Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations require manufacture to ensure that formaldehyde emissions from wood-based panels meet the stricter E05 limit before products are placed on the EU market.
The updated requirement, introduced under Annex XVII of EU REACH, halves the existing formaldehyde emission threshold for wood-based panels and will come into force for affected products across the EU on 6th August 2026.
The revised limit reduces allowable formaldehyde emissions from the current E1 threshold of 0.124mg/m鲁 to 0.062mg/m鲁 air concentration, designated industry wide as E05. The restriction applies across the EU market to all formaldehyde-emitting products, including medium-density fibreboard (MDF) panels.
The new rules also apply in Northern Ireland, since under the Brexit treaty it remains subject to EU regulations, but not in Great Britain. So manufacturers are theorteically free to continue dump their old dirtier product in England and sell their cleaner product only in the EU. However most are likely to offer the same products across the whole European continent, so the effect is that the United Kingdom must live with these sort of EU rules despite no longer having any say in their drafting.
Irish MDF producer Medite Smartply says that all its products will comply with the new REACH regulations by early April, four months ahead of the August deadline.
Updated declarations of performance, safety data sheets and product datasheets confirming E05 compliance will be issued as part of the transition, and while 色猫直播 Product Regulation markings will continue to reference E1 for CPR purposes, supporting documentation will confirm alignment with the revised EU REACH requirement where applicable.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been preparing for the revised EU REACH restriction for some time,鈥� said Medite Smartply technical services manager Guillaume Coste. 鈥淲e have been investing in testing and production readiness so that customers can expect the same dependable performance from MEDITE MDF as the industry moves to the lower E05 threshold.鈥�
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