Can I burn medium density fibreboard (MDF) in a smoke control area?
MDF is a manufactured wood board product essentially made of wood chip and urea-formaldehyde resin. In the UK it is largely made from recycled wood but manufacturers include measures to reduce the likelihood of treated/coated wood being used. Combustion of MDF can fall under a number of legal instruments: Combustion of MDF could fall within the scope of the Waste Incineration Directive (2000/76/EC) or “WID” but, Defra guidance (under the environmental permitting regulations for England & Wales) is that the MDF manufacturing process does not use chemicals containing halogens or heavy metals so, provided clean waste wood was used to manufacture the MDF, WID does not apply to MDF combustion. See the section on waste wood in the guidance at this link for details: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/policy/permits/documents/wid-guidance.pdf Note that combustion of faced MDF could be a WID activity because, although the resin used in such facings is very similar to the urea-formaldehyde resi
