No Picnic with Arsenic in Wooden Picnic Tables

(Organic Slant) Arsenic in pressure-treated wood, used in picnic tables across the country, pose an increased risk of cancer to kids who play and eat on wood surfaces.

Pressure-treated wood is saturated with chemicals that poison insects and microorganisms that could chew up or feed on the wood, weakening the structure. The chemicals, which are pesticides, are not safe to eat and so pressure-treated wood is not supposed to be used in contact with food.

People eat and people eat well, after all the U.S. is the most obese nation there is. We eat and there is no secret about it. Of course we have to eat it on something, arsenic containing tables of course. I don’t mean the ones we have at home, but I am talking about the ones outside such as wooden arsenic tables. The wood is pressure treated with arsenic. It also doesn’t help that they are outside because when it rains the wood can rot and as a result arsenic comes out and is more exposed. The real danger is that people eat off them, or when food is dropped on the table and picked up and eaten and drinks are spilled and a little kid licks it up.

Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) has been used extensively in this country as a wood preservative. CCA is composed of: copper, which acts as a fungicide; arsenate, a form of arsenic, which is an insecticide; and chromium, which binds the ingredients to the wood. Arsenic is poisonous and a known carcinogen. In fact, Arsenic is on EPA’s very short list of chemicals KNOWN without question to cause cancer in humans.

Most lumber pressure treated with CCA has a characteristic green tinge. However, as the wood weathers it becomes harder to distinguish from untreated wood. Most wood sold for outdoor use in the United States between 1975 and 2003 has been pressure treated with chromated copper arsenate.

For 3 decades, builders of outdoor decks, arbors, swing sets, and other unpainted structures have relied almost exclusively on the greenish wood known as pressure-treated lumber. Annual sales of some 7 billion board feet of this wood created a U.S. industry worth $4 billion per year. What makes the lumber so useful is what the pressure treatment forced into it: a toxic cocktail of arsenic and other pesticides that deters termites, other insects, fungi, and microbes.

In 2001 alone, CCA production devoured some 40 million pounds of arsenic and 64 million pounds of hexavalent chromium. Both arsenic and that form of chromium at relatively low concentrations are carcinogens, but arsenic is of greater concern because it leaches from the wood more readily.

The Environmental Protection Agency had approved pressure-treated wood decades ago, but the agency announced that it would begin reevaluating whether CCA’s ingredients posed a cancer risk to children. Wood-preservative makers responded by volunteering to phase out CCA for residential and almost all other uses where substantial human contact could be expected.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) ruled in 1986 that CCA pressure-treated wood is safe for interior use, play structures, garden edging, and vegetable stakes. This ruling was based on the tight, “irreversible” binding of the metals to the wood fibers. The metals can be made bioavailable, however, under certain conditions. Peters and colleagues (1983) reported that a family was stricken with a variety of illnesses, including bronchitis, pneumonia, gastrointestinal disorders, and severe alopecia, after extended burning of CCA-treated wood for heating purposes. Peters and colleagues later reported that two workers developed pulmonary, hematologic, and gastrointestinal symptoms after several days of construction of picnic tables using freshly treated CCA lumber in which the metals were inadequately fixed. Thus, in these exceptional circumstances, CCA-treated wood has produced adverse health effects.

Indeed, as of Dec. 30, 2003, U.S. chemical companies no longer have EPA approval to sell CCA to treat wood for use around homes, though retailers have until May 16 to sell CCA-infused lumber still in supply pipelines. Because CCA production had accounted for 90 percent of domestic arsenic use, EPA notes that the treated lumber’s phaseout should “virtually eliminate” this poison’s U.S. market.

Ordinarily, EPA considers a cancer risk as excessive when it’s higher than 1 in a million. On average, kids exhibiting extensive hand-to-mouth behaviors who live in warm environments face a 2.5 in 100,000 cancer risk—or more than 10 times the risk that triggers EPA concern. The agency now projects that for the top 5 percent of exposed children, the cancer risk could be 1.4 in 10,000, or more than 100 times the value that might be deemed acceptable. An EPA report dated Nov. 10, 2003, outlines the details of these calculations (https://www.epa.gov/oscpmont/sap/2003/december3/shedsprobabalisticriskassessmentnov03.pdf).

Study after study has confirmed the risks of arsenic wood preservatives, and over the past year there has been a flood of new evidence. It is clear that arsenic levels in commercially sold pressuretreated wood are high enough to pose an increased risk of cancer and other serious illness in the long term, and acute poisoning that could result in seizures or permanent nerve damage in the short term. Those risks are significantly increased for children, whose growing bodies are more susceptible to the harmful effects of arsenic.

Exposure

Exposure to pressure treated wood can cause: lung cancer, bladder cancer, skin cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer, cancer in the nasal passages, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and possibly death. The standard formulation of CCA used in wood is 22 percent arsenic.

Every other use of arsenic as a pesticide is banned by the EPA. Somehow, a special federal exemption was given to the wood industry, and millions of pounds of CCA per year were injected into wood that was used by families all across the country, CCA is not only poisonous to pests, but also to children.

Arsenic sticks to children’s hands when they play on treated wood, and is absorbed through the skin and ingested when they put their hands in their mouths. Children who rub their hands on a tiny surface area of new or old playground equipment have a one-in-10 chance of coming into contact with 10 times as much arsenic as the EPA drinking water standard allows.

A study warns that arsenic used to treat outdoor wood products doesn’t dissipate with time and that children who play on decade-old equipment are as likely to be exposed to high levels of the potential cancer-causing agent as are those who play on structures manufactured recently.

To protect your children from arsenic exposure, take the following measures:

• Seal the wood at least once per year with standard penetrating deck treatments.
• Replace potentially high-exposure sections such as handrails, steps, or deck boards with non-arsenic alternatives.
• Keep children and pets away from the soil beneath and immediately surrounding arsenic-treated wood structures.
• Cover arsenic-treated picnic tables with a tablecloth before using.
• Do not pressure-wash to clean the surface of arsenic-treated wood. Instead, use a soap and water solution, with disposable cleaning supplies.
• Do not allow children to play on rough wood surfaces. Arsenic-treated wood splinters can be dangerous.
• Do not store toys or tools under the deck. Arsenic leaches from the wood when it rains and may coat things left there.
• Do not use commercial “deck washing” solutions. These solutions can convert chemicals on the wood to a more toxic form.

Handling Precautions:

Dispose of treated wood by ordinary trash collection. Treated wood should not be burned in open fires or in stoves, fireplaces, or residential boilers because toxic chemicals may be produced as part of the smoke and ashes. Treated wood from commercial or industrial use (e.g., construction sites) may be burned only in commercial or industrial incinerators or boilers in accordance with state and Federal regulations.

Avoid frequent or prolonged inhalation of sawdust from treated wood. When sawing, sanding and machining treated wood, wear a dust mask. Whenever possible, these operations should be performed outdoors to avoid indoor accumulations or airborne sawdust from treated wood.

When power-sawing and machining, wear goggles to protect eyes from flying particles.

Wear gloves when working with the wood. After working with the wood, and before eating, drinking, toileting, or using tobacco products, wash exposed areas thoroughly.

Because preservatives or sawdust may accumulate on clothes, they should be laundered before reuse. Wash work clothes separately from other household clothing.

More information is available at https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/chemicals/1file.htm

Protect your family from CCA-treated wood:

• Make sure that children wash their hands after playing on CCA-treated surfaces, particularly before eating.
• Don’t let children eat at CCA-treated picnic tables. At a minimum, cover the table with a plastic-coated tablecloth.
• Seal CCA-treated wood structures every year with polyurethane or other hard lacquer.
• In new construction, use products that do not contain arsenic. One option is ACQ-treated wood.

Alternatives

Testing for arsenic on picnic tables in community parks can be time consuming. Newer community parks are adopting concrete and metal picnic tables as an alternative to wood. These alternative materials are also preferable to wood, due to their longevity.

Cedar or Redwood

The Red Cedar is naturally resistant to decay and insect damage and smells fantastic.

Concrete Picnic Tables

Concrete picnic tables are not only sturdy by nature, but deter vandalism and theft. As they are weather and water resistant, cleanup is easy. Concrete tables can also come reinforced with steel, allowing them to withstand years of use. Meanwhile, these tables come in a variety of precast models, meaning your community park will never need to sacrifice function for practicality.

Metal Picnic Tables

Metal picnic tables are similarly durable, and come resistant to heavy loan, damage and corrosion. These picnic tables are also great for use by pools or lakes, as they have a higher resistance to moisture compared to other varieties.

Unlike concrete or wood picnic tables, some tables made from metal come in easy-folding design, making them ideal for rental or personal use.

Conclusion

Many park goers have sat at wooden picnic tables without knowing of the invisible dangers of wood pressure-treated with arsenic.

You wouldn’t want to make a picnic table out of pressure-treated wood. It is also inadvisable to use pressure-treated wood for decks and play equipment used by children who have their hands in their mouths and on the wood.

EPA Reregistration Eligibility Decision for Chromated Arsenicals