Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The design is cute, but the smell coming from the particleboard used in tbe laundry hamper is really horrible. I cleaned the surface area (the linen covering) with something that usually works on formaldehyde-type smells and washed the laundry bags in hot with a good detergent. The laundry bags smelled a little better, but the hamper did not. So I looked up the materials used in the product. The MDF listed on the amazon description is "medium-density fibreboard." I looked up "MDF board" on Wikipedia [accessed on 2 March 2018] and paid special attention to what it is made of and to safety concerns. "MDF is typically made up of 82% wood fibre, 9% urea-formaldehyde resin glue, 8% water and 1% paraffin wax." I am not sure that that formulation of resin glue is in the MDF used in the hamper, but whatever glue is used could be the cause of the horrible smell. If the manufacturer reads this review and says what type of glue is in their MDF, I would be interested in finding out. Here is a huge safety concern posted in the Wikipedia article about MDF-board products: "Formaldehyde resins are commonly used to bind together the fibres in MDF, and testing has consistently revealed that MDF products emit free formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that pose health risks at concentrations considered unsafe, for at least several months after manufacture. Urea formaldehyde is always being slowly released fyom the edges and surface of MDF." So my conclusion about whether or not to keep this product is that I don't want to risk continuing to keep a product that smells like and possibly emits free formaldehyde.