AQMD to Try to Cut Smog by Reducing Solvents in Paint
At Disneyland, few commodities are as vital as paint. The “Happiest Place on Earth” is expected to gleam every day despite the onslaught of tens of thousands of dirty hands and feet.
Yet the team responsible for keeping Disneyland bright and shiny has discovered that keeping up its image doesn’t necessarily mean prying open cans of traditional, oil-laden paints.
Instead, the park has gradually been shifting to pollution-free brands. And under a proposed environmental mandate, the paints used to spruce up the homes and businesses of 14 million Southern Californians--from bedrooms to office buildings to Disneyland’s Main Street--will be transformed too.
Oil-based flat-finish house paints would be phased out in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties if the South Coast Air Quality Management District votes to adopt a new regulation as expected today.
Paint is among Southern California’s largest producers of smog because they contain oil-based solvents, called volatile organic compounds, that react in the air. If the new rule is adopted, flat paints must contain 60% fewer solvents in 2001 and be virtually solvent-free in 2008. Solvent content of lacquers--clear topcoats used on wood--would also be restricted in 1998 and cut in half in 2005.
With such widely used household products at stake, the proposal is highly controversial. Consumers, painters and manufacturers have differing opinions about the quality and durability of the new, environmentally safer formulas.
Ben Remley, who supervises one of the largest paint departments in the region, has some reassuring words for homeowners: The oil-free, odorless products work great for most ordinary uses.
“We’ve been very satisfied in those areas we’re using it. It covers fine, with one-coat coverage, and it seems to be durable enough,” said Remley, supervisor of Disneyland’s paint department. “Where we’ve seen the big advantage is office complexes. We used to have to clear out the buildings and some people weren’t comfortable coming to work, but now it’s not an issue. There’s no odor at all.”
But paint manufacturers and many contractors say the nonpolluting flat paints should not be universally mandated because they cost more and do not wear as well for all uses, especially on exterior walls, where some formulas can more readily fade and crack. They are urging the AQMD board to set the solvent limits substantially higher.
Hal Hargrave, owner of Apex Painting, a contractor that employs about 100 painters in Pomona, said customers will be dissatisfied because houses and buildings may need to be repainted more often--every three to seven years instead of every 10 to 12 years.
“I won’t use zero-VOC [solvent] products. It’s an inferior product and I’ve got to take care of my customers,” said Hargrave, whose company mainly paints commercial buildings. “I can honestly say there’s a place for it, such as hospitals, where you can’t remove people. But the trade-off is you’ll be painting two or three or four times more often.”
Waterborne flat-finish paints containing less oil have been sold for years, and initial limits on their oil content went into effect in Southern California in 1979. But totally solvent-free brands have only been available since 1992, when the Glidden Co., now ICI Paints, introduced Spred 2000, the first emission-free house paint.
Nine other companies, including the Sherwin-Williams Co., Frazee Paint and Benjamin Moore & Co., have also started making them, and sales have been steadily accelerating.
Residents of the region use about 35 million gallons of paints and other coatings a year, releasing about 60 tons of smog-causing fumes daily--more than refineries, gasoline stations and aerospace plants combined, AQMD officials say.
The paint rule would eliminate 10.5 daily tons of emissions, ranking near the top of anti-smog measures the agency plans to impose in the next 10 years.
The AQMD’s restrictions would add about $4 to the price of a gallon of house paint and cost $14.5 million per year for Southland consumers and businesses, according to an AQMD analysis. Flat paints and lacquers that do not meet the standards could not be sold or used in the four-county region. Semi-gloss paints are exempt from the new limits.
Switching all flat paints to solvent-free formulas by 2008 is “nothing more than sheer speculation and hope,” said attorney Curtis Coleman, who represents Sherwin-Williams.
“There are uses and situations where they don’t work as well as other conventional coatings,” he said.
“Lower [solvent content] favors low-quality paint,” said Barry Jenkin, a corporate manager at Benjamin Moore & Co’s technical center.
But many paint contractors, architects and businesses prefer the fume-free products and endorse the new limits, including Southern California Gas Co. and some hospitals and schools.
The Santa Monica-based architectural firm Syndesis recently remodeled an 8,000-square-foot house in Bel-Air using all nonpolluting materials. Syndesis President David Hertz said claims about inferiority are unfounded and reflect a resistance to change in the industry.
“I have not found those claims to be valid with my direct experience, having worked with the paint,” Hertz said. “The paints have not disintegrated. They have held up well. Actually, I’ve found more yellowing occurring with solvent-based paints.”
The solvent-free paints, he said, “are superior, certainly when it comes to workability and occupational safety for the painter. Contractors should say, ‘I’m not killing brain cells as fast when I’m working with it.’ ”
AQMD officials say their review of the solvent-free paints--including some comparison tests by Glidden chemists--shows “similar to superior performance in every coating characteristic” including durability and ease of spreading when compared with oil-based ones.
Disneyland needs high-quality paints because it uses about 8,400 gallons yearly--equivalent to painting the interiors of 700 average-size houses every year. About 15% of the paint is pollution-free, and Remley said it is perfect for interiors of attractions and kitchens, offices and hallways.
But Remley said the new formulas are not durable enough for high-traffic areas such as handrails or the carousel, where about 10,000 children scramble aboard the brightly colored horses every day. Such places often need daily touch-ups, and the crew uses heavy-duty polyurethane coatings that are exempt from the AQMD rule.
“In offices, it’s not a problem, it’s just fine, but outside, it’s not only the guests, it’s the elements, the rain, the dirty air. It all factors in and it doesn’t seem to hold up as well,” Remley said.
Still, the Disney paint team endorses the AQMD’s proposal because it would force manufacturers to improve the array of nonsolvent products over the next few years.
“My goal in the shop is to keep driving the [solvents] down as far as I can and still have a product that works,” said Gene Sweeney, color specialist in Disneyland’s paint shop. “I don’t think it’s quite perfected yet, but we feel secure that the products are going to be good enough for the near future.”
But the companies that make them are not so optimistic. About 40% of all flat paints sold in California stores today meet the proposed limit for 2001 and 12% meet the requirement for 2008.
“Zero-VOC paints, they are coming along and I think the market is going to demand it. But trying to shove it down our throats at this time, as a contractor, I’m worried about performance and quality,” Hargrave said.
AQMD officials believe that they are giving the companies ample time--12 years--to perfect the solvent-free formulas. They will assess the technology again in 2000 to see if it’s on track.
