The era of toxic painting is over!

Recently I attended the Green Festival in San Francisco and was blown away by how enormous it was. Over 30,000 people perused through the event; snacking on organic foods, beer and wine, shopping eco products, listening to lectures on sustainable living and even getting their toes rubbed. (Yes, there were massage booths: click on the link above if you want to find an event near you). I came home with an 8-inch stack of flyers and business cards—made from recycled paper of course—and added a few new links to the site. Eco Painting is also selling a handful of irresistibly Green dot coms, so check out the "links" if you're in the market for an Eco start up. But if you're new to Eco Painting, read on!

Green products are revolutionizing the industry

Eco products are no longer limited to interior, low-traffic applications. Now there are durable, waterproof eco paints for interior AND exterior surfaces. If you need to re-roof your home, Eco-Shake is a 100% recycled roofing material that requires no maintenance. It's so durable, in fact, the company backs it up with a 50 year transferrable warranty. As the technology continues to advance, our environment can reap the benefits, but there IS a catch; we have to stay informed. So before you build a new deck, make sure you're not buying wood from a clear-cutting operation, and when you stain that deck, use an eco-stain. Now you're living su-stain-ably. (I know, I know, but I couldn't help it). Is your concrete cracking? Coat it with EnviroPro. Got bricks? Eco-Brick. Soon enough our neighborhoods will become EcoHoods. And it is becoming increasingly irrelevant what the surface is, as there are eco-epoxies, eco-urethanes and non-skid coatings for pool areas and docks. You can even coat the concrete lining of the pool itself. Technology is finally catching up to Mother Nature, do you think she approves?

We are witnessing the birth of high tech, high-performance, ZERO TOXIC paints, stains and finishes. And the best part is, they really work. Ecos Paints, an earth-friendly paint manufacturer in the UK, has developed a paint containing particles of nickel, which block and reflect microwave, X-ray and computer emissions. This is great news for people who work in hospitals and busy offices. And for me the most exciting news in the painting industry is the development of solar paint. It's not on the market yet, but the next time you paint your house, you may be saving on your electric bill!

It may surprise you to hear that the Environmental Protection Agency has listed indoor air quality as one of the top 5 hazards to human health. In fact, indoor air quality is rated 2 to as much as 100 times worse than the quality of the air outside. Why? One of the main reasons is… paint. Paints and other coatings such as stain, varnish, lacquer and urethane, continue to release low levels of toxic gas for years after application. You would think that once the smell is gone, the toxic gas is gone. Not so. Although the worst emissions occur during the initial application of the products, the gasses continue to discharge from the surfaces over a number of years before turning inert. Of course, by that time, you may need another coat of paint!

Why do toxic chemicals have to be in the paint? They don’t. Hundreds of years ago (and as recently as the early 1900’s) people used natural materials such as clay, lime, chalk, milk curds, bees wax, plant oils and even ox blood to coat wood, plaster, brick and cement. It is interesting to note that the longest lasting paint known to man is ox blood. There is a famous door in Denmark that was painted with ox blood in 1692 and has not been repainted since. It remains in good condition today. That's a 300 year old paint job!

So what happened in the 1900’s? The industrial revolution. With the invention of the automobile came a sudden boom in petroleum production. In the process of refining oil, we discovered a variety of “by-products” such as vaseline, epoxy, rubber cement, trash bags, linoleum, balloons, nylon rope, combs, shag rugs, insect repellent... and the list goes on. We also discovered that some of these by-products made durable paints; “conventional” paint. But that was then. Now, virtually 100 years after the birth of the industrial revolution, we’re seeing the birth of the green revolution, where high technology meets sustainability. Smart.