Celluloid is the combination of a relatively low nitrate level nitro cellulose and camphor. The camphor is what you smell when you break open a ball.
Cellulose fibers are used to make nitrocellulose. Typical fibers are cotton or wood pulp. Yes, the same fibers used to make newspaper, facial tissue and your underwear (cotton). Cellulose fibers surround us. Plants are about 30% cellulose fibers. Lots of things are made from cellulose fibers and they aren't being banned. In fact, some manufactures are promoting cellulose as a replacement for more dangerous or less environmentally friendly products such as asbestos and fiberglass. You can get cellulose insulation for your home and concrete that is reinforced with cellulose fibers.
Nitrocellulose is made worldwide and there is no impending ban or any indication that its manufacture will be reduced in any significant degree. Nitrocellulose is used for the making of inks, gunpowder and propellants, and nail polish and a few other things.
Here is but one company - in the U.K. that makes nitrocellulose.
http://www.nitrocellulose.com/index.html
Here's another company.
http://www.dow.com/dowwolff/en/c ... cellulose/index.htm
Nitrocellulose is typically shipped in containers where it is wetted with water or alcohol precisely because of its volatile nature. Wet things don't tend to put fibers in the air - not that it would matter much anyway. There are many kinds of protective gear that modern factory workers wear when there are airborne hazards anyway. Many things are hazardous. Modern man has, however, manages to successfully deal with many such things. We drive in cars with many gallons of very flammable fuel and live in electrified houses.
I contacted a Japanese company that supplies celluloid for table tennis ball manufacturers. They said that the notion that the hazards of celluloid being the same as for asbestos is imagined.
Celluloid production has diminished not because of hazards, but because for most applications, better (which might mean simply cheaper or might mean actually performs better) materials have been developed. That has been the case for some time. I find it hard to believe that table tennis manufacturers know less about how to run their businesses than does Adham Sharara. I doubt seriously that they needed him to tell them of any impending problem with the making of celluloid table tennis balls. They aren't idiots. They know they can't sell rubber, blades, tables and so forth if there are no balls to play with. Nonetheless, apparently it took Adham's prodding get them to once again try seriously to come up with a different ball.
I seriously hope that the new ball has as many advantages as it does disadvantages. Because frankly, if we are going to get railroaded into this change - as seems to be the case - I'd like for it not to be a disaster.
I find it hard to believe that celluloid manufacturing has been banned in any country. The reason is simple. Nitrocellulose is made all over the world, including in the U.K. and that's the dangerous/volatile component. Combining it with camphor doesn't make it more dangerous, it makes it less so. Celluloid manufacturing almost surely has become a niche activity because of the lack of demand. Is there any wonder that it is being made primarily in China, Korea, and Japan - three countries where table tennis is quite popular?
The ITTF put out a pure fiction when they said that there was a worldwide ban on celluloid. Even Adham must admit that was not true. Though even then he's saying that was an oversimplification. I'd like to point out that "fiction" does not equal "oversimplification."
One of their officials also put out the fiction that celluloid (or did he say nitro-cellulose?) production is 80% the same as nitro-glycerin. That's another fiction. Adham is associating cellulose fibers (I grew up next to cotton fields - egad!!) with asbestos. Seems like a lot of hype being associated to celluloid and very little substance, facts and reference being offered to support any of it. I, for one, am waiting for Adham to actually show some kind of reference to these bans, hazards and so forth. I suspect the wait will be very long.
In the meantime, I'll leave it to the various forum members to decide for themselves if the things Adham Sharara and the ITTF is saying on this topic seem credible. From what I've been able to find, it just doesn't add up.
