California retailer urges change to formaldehyde rule

Wants to avoid having to sell off floor samples twice

Heath Combs -- Furniture Today, August 11, 2009

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Requiring floor samples to be sold twice in two years will be too burdensome for a furniture industry trying to meet California's new composite panel formaldehyde emissions standard, officials with furniture retailer Scandinavian Designs argue.

Bob Schoenfeld, quality control manager for Scandinavian Designs, has been working to gain support for one sell-through period for floor samples and has been in talks with officials from the California Air Resources Board.
Click here to read a letter he wrote to a CARB official in May.

New California formaldehyde limits took effect in January. The regulation sets caps on emissions allowed from composite panel products including hardwood plywood, particleboard and medium density fiberboard (MDF) - materials commonly used in furniture.

As the rules are currently written, furniture retailers will have to sell off their floor samples twice - once when the deadline for Phase I hits on July 1, 2010, and again by the lower-emission Phase II deadline on July 1, 2011.

But instead of having to sell off non-compliant inventories twice, Schoenfeld suggests that furniture retailers sell non-compliant floor samples at the beginning of the rule's second phase. Because of weak economic conditions, Schoenfeld argues that stores should be able to keep their current floor samples until the Phase II deadline in 2011.

He said in his May letter to CARB that if the rule remains unchanged, Scandinavian Designs will have to sell off $8 million in floor samples and back-up inventory twice. The retailer's parent, which operates Scandinavian Designs, Plummers and Dania stores, operates 39 stores including 22 in California.

CARB has already extended some deadlines for compliance with formaldehyde rules, as they apply to distributors of composite panel. But it hasn't amended the deadlines for retailers of finished goods.

Schoenfeld added that he also is encouraging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is considering adopting California's rule, to take a close look at issues that arise as part of CARB's sell-through dates to avoid similar problems with any potential national formaldehyde rule.