ITALIA – On June, 1st 2018 the EPA regulation concerning formaldehyde emission from composite wood products came into force and Catas, first in Italy, has already obtained the accreditation according to EN ISO/IEC 17065 for its product certification scheme Catas Quality Award – Formaldehyde Tsca Title VI (EPA).

The decision has been taken by ACCREDIA – the sole national accreditation body appointed by the Italian government attesting the competence, independence and impartiality of certification bodies – within the past July 17th sectorial committee.

An important result on an extremely topical subject, which is getting a great deal of attention from all the furniture companies who want to sell wood-based products in the US.

Companies, in fact, must comply the new American legislative scenario, outlined by the federal law Toxic Substances Control Act – Tsca Title VI concerning formaldehyde emissions and valid in the US. A set of new rules and new requirements not only for the manufacturers of wood-based panel and finished products containing panels, but also for all the organizations that operate along the chain of inspection and certification of compliance to the technical requirements.

“Completing the formal accreditation process was for Catas the first objective on the agenda since the first news about the new needs for verification and certification of wood-based panels for the US market” Lorena Riul, head of the Cqa-Catas Quality Award department, commented. “We always work to be ready to provide a technical-regulatory support to the companies with regards to any update imposed by the markets, in the best way and as fast as possible”.

“The commitment and investments made during many years of accreditation as certification body according to the requirements of Carb – the Californian standard now officially extended to all the United States -, the competence of our inspectors, the value recognized at each level of our certification process have been rewarded and they allowed us – let me say it with a hint of pride – to beat everyone on time”.

And she concluded: “Anyway, the real race to win was to maintain the certification of our customers that, with the only temporary authorization of Epa, would have stopped in March 2019”.