The truth about pallets

[Dave A]

Let's pick over a few things from the various links:

Formaldehyde.
There is some level of formaldehyde in many plastics and glues in common, everyday use. Normally really minute quantities, but there none the less. Ask any medical student that has been sensitised to formaldehyde after spending too long carving up cadavers what the world smells like for the next week or two - they'll tell you - formaldehyde is absolutely all over the place in this plastic world. We just don't normally notice.

The blocks are probably the only part where you could use an engineered wood composite - and frankly, I can't recall seeing any pallets with engineered wood components in SA. (No doubt they're out there - but I suspect not commonly in SA).

The question that comes to mind on this point is if you "repurposed" the wood from a pallet, would you use the "engineered wood composite" blocks?

Methyl bromide residues.
Methyl bromide is a gas with "acceptable" desorption properties. I've chosen "acceptable" because we live in a world with ever improving technical capabilities, and perhaps it's possible nowadays to detect a methyl bromide molecule or two that might still be lingering in the wood after a week or so. In the days when I used to do methyl bromide fumigation of structures, we couldn't pick up methyl bromide readings within a couple of hours after ventilating a fumigated house, using pretty state-of-the-art Draeger gas detection equipment available at the time (admittedly more than 15 years ago now, but still ,we're talking less than a part per million in free air even back then).

Suffice to say you are probably exposed to higher concentrations of methyl bromide going surfing than you would be sniffing a methyl bromide fumigated pallet 24 hours after ventilation. (The white water foamy bit of a breaking wave in sea water produces minute quantities of methyl bromide).

Ultimately, a lack of residue is an important characteristic of any phytosanitary measure. You want to kill the bugs without introducing a contaminant that's going to hang around, leave a residue, or in any other way adulterate the product.

Poisoned wood.
In terms of "poisoned wood" in pallets - if there is any poison present in the timber, it certainly has nothing to do with any deliberate attempt at preservation. In fact any treatment with a residual pesticide is contra-indicated for a number of reasons:

Pesticide residues might pose a contamination problem for the load.
Pallets are viewed as items with a very short useful lifespan, thus:
- you want it to be easily biodegradable and not leave residuals
- incurring the expense of any preservative measures is not economically justifiable.

All that out of the way, concerns about exposure to load and environment obviously does seem to have some merit. If you're going to make a baby's cot out of wood from used pallets, probably worth doing so with at least as much care and consideration as you would have buying a second hand cot.

[Dave S]

@DaveS...I think that your argument is rather absurd.

Have you ever been in the kitchen of a large restaurant or take away place, do you go to a public bathroom, do you press the button in an elevator? I would far rather have 30 year old crap sealed into my dining room table that Philemon's stinky butt scratching finger on my KFC!

You make a valid point Adrian, and yes, it is rather absurd, but still, I wouldn't be able to enjoy a meal with that thought in the back of my head, and thanks to you, now I can't even enjoy my KFC...

[ians]

The way I see this, you got more chance of your baby getting aids form the helper than being poisoned by some piece of wood which has been sanded and sealed with a non toxic paint.