By Rachel. 

In July, I had a brief interview with Peter Umanec, M. Sc. Commercial Development Representative for Benjamin Moore. Mostly, I was interested in the benefits of low to zero VOC paints, and wondering how these are preferable to other environmentally forward-thinking products, such as recycled paints. Peter explained everything pretty completely, and I gained a greater understanding of why he promotes the Benjamin Moore “Natura” line of paint.

Rachel: Okay, so first of all, why Natura?
Peter: Well let me ask you a question. Why are solvents necessary in paints at all?
Rachel: No clue, actually.
Peter: Well, Modern paints, are made of plastic, and plastic is just like a piece of Plexiglas, hard. So the paints are made up of millions of tiny beads of plastic, and if you mixed those beads with water and poured out, it would just look like milk, and when it dries it would dry to a chalky consistency and just flake off. So they add the solvents to make paint sticky, to stick to the wall and to stick together.
Rachel: So how are paints made with no solvents?
Peter: It is a different structure of acrylic that involves no solvents, but stays soft. If you start with soft plastic, no solvents are needed.

Rachel: Okay, so why Natura specifically?
Peter: Well, the product Ecospec is very similar to Natura. It is a paint with average solids of 35% and 65% water, and when you use a one gallon can of the paint, about a 1/3 of the can is left on the wall after you paint. The rest evaporates. So with Natura, it is just a little more concentrated, with around 45% of the can as a solid and 55% water. This way, the customer doesn’t notice a difference, but the painter uses fewer coats, fewer applications of a richer, thicker paint.
Rachel: So this will mean fewer cans needing to be recycled.
Peter: Right, also as far as odour, for the homeowner it’s nice because when the paint is still in the can, a giant vacuum is used to remove any remaining odours.
Peter: So now, why this trend towards Green?
Rachel: I guess people are realizing we have to take better care of the planet and ourselves.
Peter: Right. In the 80s, we started realizing that there was a growing hole in the ozone layer. The government started regulating the toxic levels of everything based on VOC, but what are VOC? Any old toxic compounds? Not at all! The regulations and VOC counts on cans of paint in particular, only correspond to the amounts of volatile organic compounds within the paint that react with sunlight and produce low level ozone.
Rachel: So, any other fumes, compounds that may still be toxic to humans, polar bears, whatever, but do NOT have this reaction, go uncounted by paint companies and government regulations, and subsequently go into the homes of unsuspecting consumers?
Peter: Correct. So why I recommend Natura is because it is free from all solvents, or at least the vast majority of them, not just the ones requiring to be accounted for by the government. Which is why we like it so much.
Rachel: Well, that sounds pretty great, but I am also interested in how recycled paints compare environmentally. They sound like they are a good use of paint that people may not want anymore, which otherwise would go into a landfill or toxic waste dump.
Peter: We (at Benjamin Moore) recycle all the paint that we have control over. So when we make a batch of paint, and pour it into cans, and there is some left over on the sides of the huge pot we make it in, the sides are washed out with water, and that wash water is used in the next batch of paint and so on and so on. But if paint is returned to our stores, we cannot reuse it because we don’t know what may have been added to that paint, and we can no longer guarantee that it is toxicity free. And once there is a toxic element in paint, it is virtually impossible to remove it.
Rachel: I see, so if someone returns paint, you might not know what is in it, and so it is hazardous to reuse.
Peter: Yes, so companies that produce recycled paints must first remove the solvents from any paints that contain them, and they do so by letting them release, as they would have on a consumer’s wall, so really they are just pre-releasing the solvents for the consumer, and making the paint not work as well. Even after, the recycled paint cannot be guaranteed at any particular toxicity level or even any uniformity to the consistency of the paint from one can to the next.
Rachel: That’s too bad, I thought recycled paint sounded like a great idea, but I guess there is no way of guaranteeing the toxicity, VOC levels unless you are making it yourself and know what goes into it.
Peter: Exactly.

That pretty much concluded our discussion on paint. I was a little disappointed to learn what I did about recycled paint, that one batch might be just fine, while another have a significant rise in VOC. Companies that make recycled paints tend to offer a very limited range of colour, and the quality of that might change as well depending on the batch. There are other ways of recycling paint however, such as looking for cheap deals on mis-tints at paint stores, or advertising your unused paint on websites such as free-cycle if you have bought too much. At this point though, if you want custom colour in good quality with low levels of toxic sludge, it seems like Natura Paints are the way to go.
Rachel is the Environmental Representative of Ecopainting Inc. an eco friendly Painting Toronto Company