Formaldehyde is a raw material used in hundreds of everyday products. The major use is in residential and commercial construction to manufacture adhesive resins for plywood, fiberboard, and particleboard. Urea-formaldehyde resins are a principal component of foam in-place insulation for homes. Also, many paints and varnishes are based on formaldehyde.

Molding compounds, made using formaldehyde resins, appear in buttons, dinnerware, cookware handles, light switch cover plates, PC circuit boards, and scores of other products. Foundries require formaldehyde resins for bonding the molds used to make castings. Formaldehyde resins are also important in imparting permanent press to textiles and bonding the fibers in paper towels to make them more absorbent.

A rapidly growing, relatively new use is in manufacturing tough, hard polyacetal plastics that help reduce the weight of automobiles to increase mileage. It is also used to make the hard, durable personal computer keyboards, printers, and CPU enclosures.

Formaldehyde also occurs naturally. Trace amounts are generating in cooking and by the burning of wood, coal, and other fuels. Plants and trees release it naturally. Formaldehyde is also found in small quantities in the body as a metabolite.

Formaldehyde is a basic building block chemical essential to the operation of more than 80 industries. Companies in these industries produce thousands of industrial goods and consumer products that make up more than 8% of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP).