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comment Formaldehyde-Free Bamboo Flooring Faceoff
Two California companies have recently removed the formaldehyde from their bamboo products, keeping with the growing trend of greening the home via the elimination of toxins in construction materials. EcoTimber, based in San Rafael, has followed in the footsteps of San Francisco’s Smith & Fong, which in early 2008 introduced a line of bamboo flooring and panel products containing no added urea-formaldehyde. Ecotimber’s solid-bamboo flooring includes an emulsion polymer isocyanate (EPI) binder that contains neither urea- nor phenol-formaldehyde, according to Dan Harrington, product development director.
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The company switched to the new binder without raising the selling price of the product, says Harrington, keeping it competitive with similar products from both Smith & Fong and Teragren, which offers formaldehyde-free flooring on a special-order basis. EcoTimber’s woven-bamboo (also called strand-bamboo) flooring uses a phenol-formaldehyde binder.
Like the bamboo flooring, the company’s hardwood flooring products all use binders with no added urea-formaldehyde, with many using the same EPI binder as the solid bamboo flooring.
More information is available at: www.ecotimber.com.
This article was produced by BuildingGreen, Inc.- www.buildinggreen.com
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