David Murray, Head of Innovation and Ireland Sales at MEDITE SMARTPLY explains why more clarity is needed when it comes to MDF

Amidst a spreading preoccupation among end users with wellbeing, health and how different environments can affect these, developers and building owners need to be able to ensure current and potential occupants that their building is as healthy an environment as it can be.

In the first instance, this calls for the manufacture of products that can in themselves provide increased clarity and assurance when it comes to their ingredients and why they are used. The average person spends about 90 per cent of their time inside buildings; this figure is potentially much higher for long-term hospital patients or care home residents for example. As a manufacturer of sustainable timber panels that prides itself on listening to its customers and end users, MEDITE SMARTPLY wants to set an example and lead the way in the innovation of products that can be confidently specified for the purpose of helping to create safe, healthy environments for the most sensitive of applications.

Among the company’s latest health- and environment-led innovations is MEDITE CLEAR. The name was chosen to demonstrate the clarity that the company is aiming to provide architects with. As a new generation of MDF, MEDITE CLEAR is manufactured with zero added formaldehyde, the result being a product that far exceeds the rigid Class E1 (EN 622-1) low formaldehyde standard. Formaldehyde is found naturally in wood, therefore no wood product can be entirely formaldehyde free. However, independent tests have shown that the free formaldehyde content of MEDITE CLEAR is less than 1.0mg/100g – equivalent or less than that of natural wood, and well below the general ambient outdoor levels.

The days when users cared little about the origin or the manufacturing processes of components that made up their homes, temporary or otherwise, their workplaces, or their children’s schools are long gone. According to a recent survey 81 percent of global consumers now consider a company’s social responsibility when making a buying decision. In today’s environmentally conscious society, product manufacturers have a responsibility to do the right thing, and be as clear as possible with their customers.

MEDITE CLEAR exemplifies the overall objective across the entire MEDITE SMARTPLY product range, of being clear with architects and anyone looking for increased confidence in the indoor environment that their building will create, the outdoor environment the product will leave behind, and about exactly what goes into MEDITE MDF: simply sustainably produced timber.

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