Hardwood Floors August/September 2018

Talking TSCA

By Elizabeth Baldwin

WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

TSCA Title VI is here, and your role now is to help customers understand what it covers, and – in some ways, more importantly – what it doesn’t. You are likely to hear this referenced in many di erent ways. You’ll have customers asking about “EPA Certi ed Flooring” or “Tok-Ka” or “Tas-Ka” or “Tox-Ka” ooring. Or maybe they’ll ask, “What is Title 6?” It might even be called “CARB VI,” I’ve seen that one too. Or maybe they’ll be looking for a CARB label and wonder why you don’t have one on your new ooring box. No ma er how they approach the topic, your goal is to help themmake an informed choice. First, to review, what’s TSCA? Like “CARB” before it, TSCA is a shorthand reference that stands for something a lot bigger than what we use it for, the Toxic Substances Control Act, a law passed in 1976 to regulate commercial chemical use. e entire Act covers a lot of chemicals and a lot of issues, but in the wood industry, when people talk TSCA, they are talking about the 2010 amendment, “Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act.” e amendment o cially added “Title VI” to TSCA, so you will o en see this particular program referred to as TSCA VI or TSCA Title VI. Title VI was based on CARB, and while there are some di erences in the approach, those technical details aren’t really signi cant to the consumer – let’s talk about four concepts you do want to be able to discuss with the end-user. Like CARB, TSCA regulates four products directly – hardwood plywood (in two forms, veneer only and a veneer with a composite core), regular medium density berboard (MDF) and the thin version of MDF, and nally a composite wood product we don’t use much in the ooring industry, particleboard. Notice that ooring is not in that group. at’s your rst note for a consumer: TSCA does not directly regulate ooring. TSCA does not certify ooring. ere is no EPA-certi ed ooring. Flooring, like furniture or cabinetry or other products, should be manufactured as TSCA-compliant if it contains

WHAT DOES TSCA COVER?

1 TSCA does not

directly regulate flooring. TSCA does not certify flooring. There is no EPA-certified flooring.

2 Not all flooring is indirectly regulated by TSCA. Solid wood flooring isn’t. Lumber core engineered flooring is not. LV or any of the varied new WPC type flooring is not. 3 CARB and TSCA have the same emissions standards. The EPA has stated specifically and clearly that, from June 1, 2018 to March 22, 2019, a CARB-compliant floor is a TSCA-compliant floor. 4 TSCA, like CARB and almost every Indoor Air Quality standard out there, is about emissions, not content. It doesn’t matter if you added formaldehyde

into the floor during production. What matters is if it is coming out.

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