There is more glue than bamboo in the bamboo products, but thaks to the marketing department they are ECO, and friendly and yada yada... Just look at the proces to get decent thich board/beam.
Engineered lumber (MDF, OSB, glulam... all of them actually) also involves the same glues and chemical treatments used in bamboo, and both use formaldehide-based glues which are known carcinogens.
Uproar usually begins with the results of research and reports. That research and those reports typically originate from wherever the money is. That money typically originates from a new competitor entering the market, or from an established competitor trying to force change in market forces by affecting demand for the products being reported on.
Occasionally uproar originates from someone's personal motivation, but that requires a rare alignment of drive, capability and charisma.
One of the most insightful comments in this thread. Lays waste to the whole idea of "science happens" and instead brings forth the more realistic: "science happens when it is the interest of someone with resources for that line of research to progress".
Thanks, but it's not my insight. There's a saying "follow the money" and that's what I had in mind when I wrote my reply. I simply added the bit that covers situations where money may not be the motivator.
I'm not sure what nuerow was trying to say. Carcinogens aren't bad for you simply by looking at them. And it's widely known and often repeated to use respirators when cutting MDF.
Now is the creation of the glue environmentally unfriendly? I don't know.
> I'm not sure what nuerow was trying to say. Carcinogens aren't bad for you simply by looking at them. And it's widely known and often repeated to use respirators when cutting MDF.
In case you are not aware, engineered lumber, whether used as structural elements, finishings, or even furniture, continuously releases formaldehyde into the environment. Consequently, there are health and safety guidelines to minimize exposure, which depending on the jurisdiction can vary around 0.03ppm and 0.01 ppm.
Those who handle MDF in industrial contexts need to take a lot of precautions to be safe regarding the half dozen types of cancer linked with it's exposure, but the risk isn't limited to that context. Risk is determined by the degree of exposure, and lower-level but continuous exposure throughout longer time periods, which happens when you stay home, also presents a serious health risk.
Because people like low cost stuff. You can buy formaldehyde free plywood and MDF, but wow it's expensive compared to the formaldehyde containing products!
Vinyl flooring that has become very, very popular recently is probably worse than wood composites with regards to air quality and overall toxic effects.
Unfortunately, a lot of the effects from these materials aren't immediate and typically don't affect a large portion of the population, so it can be hard to get people to realize it's bad on a large scale.
There has been more of a focus on indoor air quality over the last decade, I expect that to continue and that we'll see more of a push for materials that have better air quality properties.
Would lignin-based glues be a suitable alternative in terms of cost, effectiveness and long-term reliability (stability) or hasn't there been sufficient development to make them viable yet?
Alternatively, could we revert back to safer traditional animal-based glues as a practical/viable option? That said, I'd guess that these days cost would be prohibitive as well as having environmental concerns not to mention their long-term reliability in that composites made with them may be prone to delamination, etc. (my experience is that animal glues get brittle with age).
In a similar vein, one of the major problems with MDF, medium density fiberboard/particleboard, is the fact that the amount of binder used is quite inadequate which means that it has limited durability/lifespan. This is a two-edged sword of course, the more binder the more expensive it will be but its durability will be increased; on the other hand, unless the binder is environmentally friendly then sooner or later we'll have a polution problem. Nevertheless, the high-grade high-density stuff can be extraordinarily durable (thus it's much less likely to end up in landfills). It seems to me that we urgently need new very durable glues and binders that are also cheap, safe and environmentally friendly.
That logically segues into the matter of artificial wood. I know, that process has been pitifully slow for obvious reasons but it seems to me we need a solution urgently as we're fast running out of both building and cabinet-quality grade lumber.
(Whilst, we may be able to keep up supply with fast growing building-grade lumber such as pinus radiata (and importantly bamboo), quality timbers are in desperately short supply and will continue to be so into the foreseeable future. For example, we've precious little of timbers such as sandalwood, lignum vitae, ebony, and various Dalbergia genus rosewoods (retusa/Cocobolo, nigra/Brazilian rosewood, melanoxylon/African blackwood, etc.), as many take several hundred years to mature and no one had the foresight to plant forests of them back in the 18th Century! Thus, all of them are on the CITIES watchlist for good reason and have been so for decades.
Moreover, they're essentially unprocurable for any practical purpose, and even if you can buy small quantities of them legally, then they're hideously expensive. For instance, African blackwood costs a fortune at well over $10,000/cubic meter, and when it comes to sandalwood we actually buy it by the gram ($85/100g): https://ventured.com/most-expensive-woods-in-the-world/
Thus, there is no solution other than to artificially manufacture† excellent, high quality, chemically-similar (complete with lignin, cellulose, etc.) facsimilies of these wonderful and very beautiful timbers.
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† Even if we're still a long way off from having artificial timber as a practical reality, there seems to be an obvious way forward for at least part of the manufacturing process - that of additive manufacturing/3D printing, as the number of textures and designs it affords are essentially endless.
