The other major Achilles Heel of engineered wood is the glues or binders used to hold the material together. They can be environmentally damaging in production, the source of toxic emissions in use, as well as a waste disposal problem. Air emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) contribute to a variety of modern maladies from smog to sick building syndrome. The binders used in engineered wood, plywood and particleboard are usually either urea- or phenolformaldehyde or resorcinol formaldehyde. Formaldehyde causes irritation and allergencity, and is a probable human carcinogen. Phenol is caustic and can harm the nervous system (Demkin, 1998, p. 639, 643). New chemicals and processes are being used to reduce the VOC level of adhesives. These include new petrochemicals like methylene diphenylisocyanate (or MDI) or fast-curing phenolic resins (Reuters, 2000). But the most encouraging developments are emerging from other areas of green chemistry and the Carbohydrate Economy. On one hand, there is a resurgence of plant-based materials like soy as the raw material for newer safer adhesives (Hardin, 2000; Schmitt, 2002). Current research is focusing on concentrating on soy-hydrolyzate and soy-flour adhesives that can either displace or greatly reduce the use of formaldehyde resins in adhesives. On the other hand, European bioprocessing initiatives are experimenting with natures own glue enzymesin bonding wood fibres. A partnership of government and private firms in Europe has had great success in producing Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) with the enzyme laccase (Danish Environmental Protection Agency, 1999). Other breakthroughs in the reaction of tannins and crosslinking agents has produced more ecological OSB panels. Most of these developments still have some ways to go to establish mass