Page 27 - Parquet International January 2014

coverings for floors” includes covering products of plant origin such as wood, wood coverings, floors in laminate, coverings and floors in cork or bamboo with over 90% of the final product's weight derived from wood, wood powder and/or wood/plant based materials. This group of products does not include coverings for walls, out- door use, or structural purposes.
Types of certifiable product
In order to prevent confusion, the European Regulation has provided correct definitions for the products that can be awarded the Ecolabel logo if they meet the requisites pre- scribed by the European Commission.
• Wood and wood-based materials. These materials are made by bonding with the use of adhesives or glues one or more of the following materials: wood fibre, and/or wood sheets or slabs, and/or residue of wood coming from forests, plantations, sawdust, paper industry pulp residue and/or recycled wood.
• Wood and wood-based materials. These include solid wood panels, wood fibre panels, medium-density fibre panels (MDF), chipboard, OSB (Oriented Strand Board), plywood, and solid wood panels. The term "wood-based materials" is also applied to composite materials made with wood-based panels faced with plastic or plastic laminate and/or resin, metal foil or other finished/semi-finished wood- based covering materials (veneer).
The group of products defined as “wood- en coverings for floors” includes solid wood and virgin wood coverings, laminate floor- ing, cork coverings and bamboo floors.
• Solid wood and virgin wood coverings are defined as: “wood floor or wall cov- erings composed of a piece of heartwood with tongues or grooves at the sides or of multi-layer panels to which various lay- ers of wood are glued. A wood covering can be unfinished and polished after in- stallation, and therefore ether finished on site or pre-finished at the producer's fac- tory”. As regards solid and virgin wood coverings, the criteria can be applied to coverings for floors and walls if the pro- duction process is the same and if the same materials and production methods are used. European Committee for Stan- dardization Standard CEN/TC 112.
• Laminate floors are defined as “rigid cov- erings for floors with a top layer formed by one or more thin sheets of fibrous ma- terial (usually paper) soaked in ther- mosetting amino-plastic resin (usually melamine), pressed or fastened to a sub- strate that is usually finished with a sup-
port layer". As regards laminate floor cov- erings, the criteria can be applied only to coverings for floors and indoor use. Eu- ropean Committee for Standardization Standard CEN/TC 134.
• Cork coverings are defined as coverings for floors or walls having cork as main component. Cork granulate is mixed with a binder and then hardened or else vari- ous layers of cork (composite/veneer) can be pressed together using glue. Cork cov- erings can be divided into natural cork tiles (which have cork composite as main component and which must be provided with a finishing) and processed cork pan- els (composed of various layers, one of which being a fibre panel having a main component of cork composite or cork as a technical solution to be used with a fin- ishing wear layer). As regards cork cov- erings, the criteria can be applied to cov- erings for floors and for walls if the pro- duction process is the same and if the same materials and production methods are used. These criteria have been estab- lished exclusively for indoor use. Euro- pean Committee for Standardization Stan- dard CEN/TC 134.
• Bamboo covering are those with solid bamboo or bamboo agglomerate as their principal element. For bamboo coverings, the criteria can be applied only to cover- ings for floors and indoor use. The refer- ence unit to be adopted for the inputs and outputs is 1 sq m of finished product.
The quality required
In order to obtain the Ecolabel logo, wood coverings for floors must meet Ecolabel cri- teria and satisfy the following conditions: • Limited environmental impact on habitats
and natural resources
• Limited energy consumption
• Limitation of substances harmful for
health and the environment.
• Limited use of the harmful substances con-
tained in the materials and finished prod-
ucts.
• Safety and absence of health risks in the
home.
• Information that enables consumers to use
the product efficiently and reduce the over- all environmental impact to a minimum.
Technical criteria
The European Regulation envisions the ap- plication of 11 technical criteria that conclude with the consumer information to be pro- vided on the Ecolabel by starting from the raw materials. In detail, these criteria regard: 1. Raw materials
2. Use of harmful substances
3. Production process R
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