Go Beyond Green in Selecting Adhesives

Managing our forests is critical to the earth’s health. But the adhesives we use to bond the wood products made from the trees also factors in.

Choice of adhesives in the manufacture of wood products is central to meeting regulations for environmental friendliness. CARB requires your finished products to meet phase two emission standards, encouraging you to use products that are formaldehyde-free or contain no added formaldehyde. To gain coveted LEED points, the adhesive you use must have VOC content lower than 30 g/L, have no or added urea formaldehyde and be sourced within 500 miles of the project site.

Adhesives manufacturers today offer a range of products that meet LEED, CARB and the most rigorous state and regional VOC requirements. But green doesn’t always mean great when it comes to product performance. When considering compliant adhesives for your plant, you probably want to look beyond earth-friendly attributes to critical performance characteristics first.

You want adhesives that comply with environmental regulations, yes; but they also need to suit your particular production processes and offer the performance characteristics that increase your productivity and enhance your products. Which of the adhesives you are considering best meet your needs for strength, ease of use, versatility, set time and water and heat resistance?

You might also want to look for manufacturers that have demonstrated leadership in the development of green adhesives. For how long has the company been producing environmentally friendly products? How broad is its offering for green products? Has the company pioneered any green products of note? And what do they mean with the term “green?”

We at Franklin Adhesives & Polymers would be delighted to tell you about our long-standing commitment to environmentally friendly adhesives and explore ways the multitude of products we have developed along the way could help you answer the call for green.