Is Walmart Killing You?

Is Walmart Killing You?

You know all the affordable T.V. stands, dressers, book cases, desks and even cribs you can get at Walmart and normally have to assemble yourself? I’m not targeting Walmart, but everyone knows that that is place to get this kind of stuff at reasonable prices. You know that strong smell when you open the box and start unwrapping all the pieces from the Styrofoam and plastic? That’s the smell of death. Perhaps that’s an awfully strong statement to make but I’ll elaborate on that in a bit.

The strong odor you smell when you put those together and the “New Walmart Furniture Smell” that hangs around for weeks is formaldehyde. They use it as a preservative in the wood particle. Wood particles? You didn’t think you were buying authentic whole wood slab furniture did you? I mean it’s very heavy but that’s basically because it’s saw-dust pressed and bonded together by chemicals, chemicals that can actually give off literally sickening fumes, especially in a house or apartment that is not well ventilated. What can you do about it? Nothing really. Unless you buy real whole wood furniture. But who has that kind of money, right? It’s understandable. I’m sure we all have at least one piece of furniture somewhere in our house. One thing you can do is ensure that your house is well ventilated until the odor goes away. It may take a week or longer before all remnants of the stench is gone. Don’t blame Walmart though. You’re the one that bought it.

In case you haven’t been following the FEMA case, there are multiple cases of people with lawsuits filed because they got sick from FEMA trailers. The manufacturer of the trailers uses formaldehyde in much of the wood inside the trailer as a preservative as do most manufacturers of ply-wood or pressure fabricated furnishings. Right now between the republicans and the democrats, there is a lot of finger pointing going on as to who’s at fault for people’s sickness from these trailers. The Democrats say it’s the trailer manufacturers fault and the Republicans are saying that it’s the government’s fault for not doing something about it sooner (or something ike that). Ultimately the problem is the formaldehyde used by the manufacturer of the trailers and there were many cases of employees of the manufacturer having health problems due to the formaldehyde in the plant. Formaldehyde is good for keeping fetal pigs preserved inside a jar for science class. Not for building homes.