PT Lumber - Article - HomeOwnersHub

Tom Watson presents:

"The Environmental Working Group, which pushed the issue with both the safety commission and the EPA, is recommending that CCA-treated playground equipment be replaced or sealed every six months."

Not bloody likely, IME.

"Should we be careful? No question.

We should cut pressure-treated wood in the open instead of in an unventilated space.

We should not put a hamburger down on a picnic table made of pressure-treated wood."

No news there.

"After children finish on playground equipment made of CCA-treated wood, they should wash their hands. They also should not be playing in the dirt under the deck."

Two distinct impossibilities in one paragraph, and a short one at that. It's hard enough to get a kid to wash his/her hands anyway, when that kid is at the playground enjoying age. And getting to NOT play under a structure is just about as hard.

Still, it does show that at least one editorial group, outside woodworking and wood industry publications, is thinking and trying to do something.

For many years, I believed the various PR types with the PT industry. Now, it is apparent that all chromated arsenic that is likely to come in contact with skin, whether children or adult, should be discarded as safely as is possible, as quickly as possible. The eventual cost, both to us (as taxpayers to government) and to industry, is going to be lower if that is done, from all the current info I've seen.

Charlie Self

"Say what you will about the ten commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them." H. L. Mencken