
WeWork says it found cancer-causing chemical in its phone booths - rubyn00bie
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-booths-formaldehyde/in-new-headache-wework-says-it-found-cancer-causing-chemical-in-its-phone-booths-idUSKBN1WT2H4
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perl4ever
Matt Levine today:

"I don’t understand what is happening here. Did WeWork founder Adam Neumann
disturb a mummy and trigger an ancient curse? Was a WeWork built on a haunted
graveyard, unleashing powerful dark energies and also elevated levels of
formaldehyde? How do you have such a relentless parade of negative financial
news and then find out that your phone booths cause cancer? “Our phone booths
might cause cancer” was not an IPO risk factor.[1] Nobody had “phone booths
cause cancer” on their WeWork Disaster Bingo cards."

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hprotagonist
formaldehyde is, incidentally, my absolute least favorite chemical to work
with.

Formailin (37% formaldehyde solution) is still used for tissue preservation
and it absolutely _reeks_ to high heaven. The stink clings to my clothes, too.
A good respirator helps, but it can only do so much.

Normally you have to have a few sulfoxide bonds in things to make them
epically stinky, but formaldehyde finds a way to do without and still offend.

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ranDOMscripts
Isn't formaldehyde used in basically every composite wood product (plywood,
MDF, particleboard, etc)? Confined spaces with lots of new composite wood (see
RV's, boats, trailers, temporary classrooms) always stink for quite some time
until the offgassing subsides.

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kaikai
Yup! The phone booths don't have adequate ventilation, so fumes build up
inside of them. It's very surprising that the phone booth manufacturers didn't
consider this.

